Sunday, January 25, 1998

For nursing moms, our uneasiness is brutally cold

By SARA ECKEL / Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

Restaurant owners frequently ask these people to leave their stores. Mall security guards scowl at them and shoo them from benches.

And when members of this caste are seen in the park or on a bus they are often met with looks of disgust from passersby.

Yes, the world is a cold and brutal place when you are a nursing mother.

Fortunately, women who breast-feed their children in public have the law on their side. There is no law that forbids a woman from nursing her child outside the home, and thus far the courts have consistently upheld a mother's right to breast-feed in any place where she would otherwise have a right to be.

Nevertheless, 13 state governments have been compelled to pass laws that specifically affirm this right. In California, where such a law recently took effect, Gov. Pete Wilson said he was initially reluctant to sign the bill, thinking it unnecessary, but the grim reports of mothers being ousted from buses and restaurants persuaded him otherwise.

Removing barriers

"By signing this bill, I am removing barriers of embarrassment, harassment and charges of indecent exposure when a mother breast-feeds her child in public," Wilson said in a statement. "This legislation is needed, regrettably, to specifically clarify that breast-feeding is not something indecent and in fact is in the best health of the mother and child."

That last point was recently affirmed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which this month revised its recommendations for how long a woman should breast-feed her child -- it had previously recommended six months, now the AAP urges women to nurse for at least a year.

This comes in light of findings that show that breast-feeding enhances a child's immune system and, according to a study published this month by the AAP, might even have an effect on school performance.

Few continue

At present, few American women are meeting this requirement. Although 59 percent of American women breast-feed their child during infancy, only 22 percent continue to nurse after six months.

And who can blame them? In the United States, a mother who wishes to breast-feed her child must either ignore the cries of a hungry baby when outside of the home, or feed the child and be treated like a pariah, or cloister herself away until she can re-emerge in public as a decent, respectable citizen. Indeed, surveys cite societal disapproval as one of the main reasons why women stop breast-feeding.

"People are told to breast-feed, but it's always 'not in my living room.' It's cumbersome to believe you have to be behind closed doors or stay home just because your child is hungry," lactation consultant Janet Burruel told the Sacramento Bee.

It is as if we have forgotten what breasts are for, forgotten that their primary purpose is not to sell cars. But it's high time that we got over whatever discomfort a nursing mother might make us feel. We need to stop acting like eighth-grade boys and start doing everything we can to help women do what is best for their children.

Send e-mail to Sara Eckel at saraeum@aol.com.