The legality of public breast feeding

BREASTFEEDING in public is one of the most-discussed areas of nursing a baby that sometimes causes a friction between family members, friends and outright strangers in a society. Some people believe that public breastfeeding is natural and beautiful, a sharing of the nurturing process between mother and child. Others feel it is a private and intimate act, which should be sheltered from the eyes of others. Yet other people think that breastfeeding is perfectly fine though they just don't want to see it openly. It's all very confusing, because the breast in this culture, is essentially considered the primary sexual attribute of women. Men judge women by their breasts in terms of their size, perkiness and cleavage. Having thus hyper-sexualized that part of the body, the culture then proceeds to regulate its appearance. Even when a baby is attached to it, a breast is a breast, and in the puritanically small minds that so often prevail, a thing that incites men to sexual frenzy. It's idiotic, but there it is, and local laws and regulations may reflect the awful truth that breasts are not to be hidden or displayed. They are part of the public domain and thus subject to the laws of the land. In some backwards places, one may suffer stares of disgust and whispers of outrage, be ousted from a mall or restaurant or even receive a citation for baring a woman’s breast in public, even when it is to provide the finest kind of nourishment to a beautiful baby.

Public breastfeeding of babies should not be a matter of a serious concern, as this is the right of a woman.

Women have two alternatives as they can go ahead and breastfeed their children in the open space and duke it out each and every time someone else is offended, or they can do what women have done for centuries and put a tiny little receiving blanket over themselves and their babies and nurse them in a shady little tent. When it comes right down to it, each woman makes constant choices about how and when to expose her body. When you're a teenager it might be short skirts, when you're pregnant, you may opt for belly-baring fashions that remind us that the first religions honored women's fecundity and big, round goddess bodies. There's no reason to breastfeed openly unless you're interested in inciting comment. Clever tops, nursing bras and breastfeeding covers can keep you looking modest no matter what a wild thing you are. If you're traveling, especially to other countries, find out how women breastfeed in the places where you're going so you don't offend the citizens of that land. While in airplanes it's a consideration to your seatmates to ask the flight attendant if there's a special place where you can spread out a little to nurse. Otherwise, do use a cover to obstruct strangers’ eyes. In churches or mosques, nursing mothers generally leave the service and find a quiet, private room in which to breastfeed. In restaurants, you may find resolute opposition to nursing in public. Some people find that seeing a baby feeding interferes with their enjoyment of their own food. And it's not just breastfeeding that puts them off, except many an iron-stomached person has been rendered virtually seasick watching a doting parent pushing food into the drooling, messy mouth of a teething child. Sometimes, breast-feeding just doesn't go right, there might be a beast substitute of it and all the advice in the world can't prevent some women from finding it too painful. If you've worked with a lactation consultant, practiced various holds and techniques and still find breastfeeding uncomfortable, you may need to bottle feed your baby. In this case, you might be able to use a breast pump so your baby still gets the ideal—breast milk in a bottle feeding. If you can pump your breasts and store the milk, you're way ahead of the game