That’s the document spearheading a UK campaign from five royal colleges of medicine, nursing and midwifery and backed by UNICEF, which aims to introduce laws supporting breastfeeding mothers by
- making it an offense for anyone to attempt to stop a mother breastfeeding in public
- mandating that all employers provide nursing mothers with two half-hour breaks during the working day to devote to breastfeeding
Read the whole article(1) (via Feministing)
Our Women’s Electoral Lobby is working on a similiar initiative to the Breastfeeding Manifesto as far as ensuring that workplaces are required to take active steps to accommodate breastfeeding women with breaks and a private space to nurse/express milk.
Children who are not breastfed are at a higher risk of developing eczema, diabetes, gastroenteritis and lymphatic cancer.Ms Pollock said allowing women to breastfeed at work improved retention of skilled female workers and reduced absenteeism, as breastfed babies were sick less frequently and recovered faster, she said.
She said studies had shown that every $1 invested in breastfeeding support returned $3.
I really like that British idea of actually making it an offense to ask a woman to stop breastfeeding. Too many people are ignorant of existing laws that entitle a mother to breastfeed anywhere she happens to be. A few fines and stints of community service for officious wowsers would do the world of good in educating folk about the law as it stands.
1. Beware, there’s the usual rubbish in comments to the newspaper article comparing breastfeeding to urinating in public and lewdly failing to distinguish between the sexual and the nutritional functions of breasts
(this is an edited version of a post originally appearing at Hoyden About Town)
“1. Beware, there’s the usual rubbish in comments to the newspaper article comparing breastfeeding to urinating in public and lewdly failing to distinguish between the sexual and the nutritional functions of breasts.”
Those people say more about themselves then breastfeeding.
On the other hand, I find some breastfeeding advocates annoyingly patronising and full of moral superiority. Lots of kids were bottle fed and they grew up healthy.
Formula-fed kids do fine, but there is absolutely no medical doubt that breastmilk is better, whether it is delivered from a breast or a bottle.
Women who do find breastfeeding physically impossible due to latching problems etc can still bottlefeed their babies breastmilk if using various expression methods. It is vanishingly rare for a woman healthy enough to deliver a baby to be unable to generate breastmilk, and expressing milk is still going to be far cheaper than buying formula in the long run.
The envisaged workplace breaks are most likely to be used as a time to express breastmilk for future use, unless the mother actually has a worksite creche. That’s how it has played out in countries where such breaks are already mandated.
Isn’t this mandating that every workplace be an infant creche?
Good luck with that one.
No, it means time to express milk, both for the baby and her own relief. I can tell you from experience that a woman with achingly milk full breasts is not going to be terribly productive. I think the closest comparison for the boys out there is probably ‘blue balls’. The relief is somewhat different, but the concept is the same.
“mandating that all employers provide nursing mothers with two half-hour breaks during the working day to devote to breastfeeding”
That seems a bit arbitrary to me, especially if it’s UNICEF dictated. I’m not sure what laws regarding going to the toilet are, but it seems like breastfeeding is pretty similar – a natural process which people should have the right to if they so choose. It’s good that UNICEF has it on the agenda, but I think putting a number on it should be left to those lower down the legislative foodchain.
“making it an offense to ask a woman to stop breastfeeding”
I think it’s a disgrace that such things go on, and I can imagine it being quite distressing for hte woman involved, but seriously – it’s legal to ask people to stop breathing, isn’t it? I mean, punishing people to “[educate] folk about the law as it stands”? Seems a little PC-patronising.
Breastfeeding is one of the most beautiful and natural phenomenon two people can share.
Women should be given every opportunity to breastfeed their babies, and the repulsive social conservatives who complain should just shut the f*ck up.
Of course, if women got a decent amount of maternity leave (with pay) they wouldn’t have to rush back to work.
Women have been repeatedly been given ultimatums about stopping breastfeeding or leaving the restaurant/pool/park etc, and threatened with refusal of service in restaurants etc if they do not comply. Those are the examples which would become an offence under the proposed law.
As to PC-patronising, pshaw. If a law against an antisocial behaviour as it stands is being disregarded because there is no active penalty, then obviously the law as it stands is insufficiently punitive.
The purpose of any law is to curb antisocial behaviour, so if it isn’t working then the law needs to be adjusted. Laws are and always have been social engineering, and I see no problem with that.
Two points of clarification:
* the proposed law actually wants any “attempt to stop” a mother from breastfeeding to be a public offence – that ’s abit more than just “asking” her to stop.
* I wrote: “Laws are and always have been social engineering, and I see no problem with that.” IN PRINCIPLE. Obviously the practise of law as social engineering can be debated infinitely as to which tinkering is essential and which is unreasonable restraint etc, but the principle of law as social engineering is what the law has always been about.
Well, whatever else y’all choose ta do, please don’t stop talking about breasts.
Meanwhile, back in the world of l’homme moyen sensuel (and I do mean that last word BOTH ways!), breastfeeding: good; encouraging breastfeeding: also good; educating people about benefits of breastfeeding (and how, exactly, did our species ever come to forget this one?!!): supergood; establishing basic right at law of breastfeeding mamas to do their thang when and where they see fit: also supergood; but krazy laws with poor definitions which pander to people with self-righteous moral attitudes (see 10:41 am, ad infinitum): maybe not so good. At the very least, worth a critical re-think. Hey, remember criticism? It’s a song about criticism. And the restaurant. But, Alice’s Breastfeeding Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant; it’s just the name of the song. That’s why I called the song Alice’s Breastfeeding Restaurant.
What were we talking about again? Oh yeah, it had to do with breasts. By all means, please continue.
An ‘infant creche’, eh?
On second thoughts, I suppose it’s not really a tautology. Most workplaces are adult creches, after all.
Right on tigtog.
Perhaps the wowsers need to spend some time in PNG or Indonesia.
I had a PNG doctor friend whose children wore “Sou Sou Mamas” T shirts:
(Mother’s breast milk is the best food for the baby)
(In the early 80s in PNG, a baby’s milk bottle could only be procured on a doctor’s prescription–fucked up the multinational formula milk assholes no end –doing massive promotions in developing countries which killed untold numbers [unsterilised water].
JPZ – Those who fly into a moral panic about an infant eating – which is of course all breastfeeding is – immediately disqualify themselves from all discussion about anything. This is the case BECAUSE I SAY SO.
And please don’t call me self-righteous again.
Sorry tigtog, that makes a significant difference. I retract my patronising jibe.
I guess I would support that, although it still makes me a little uneasy in my libertarian loins – perhaps if it were qualified to public spaces or something.
Actually, it is the sexual function of breasts and the nutritional capacity of nipples to act as a milk delivery system. BTW, the cup size or otherwise of a woman’s breasts has nothing to do with her ability to breastfeed. And the capacity and ability and the desire of a woman to breastfeed her child/ren has nothing to do with bodily functions like urinating. Anyone who has a problem with it should take a hike and stop bothering anyone who doesn’t have a problem with women breast feeding anywhere.
My old biology lecturer (physiology) told me that milk – cow, goat, whale, human, kangaroo – was best viewed as a sort of fatty sweat with excellent nutritional and health value for infants. Nothing more. Regardless, it does – can’t personally speak for whale milk however – taste great, though.
Cheers…
We’ve got a long way to go before public attitudes to breastfeeding changes. When I visited work with my baby and requested a private room to breastfeed her, the sense of embarrassment was palpable.
It’s worth noting that the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination on the grounds of breastfeeding, which would seem on the face of it to cover attempts to stop a woman from breastfeeding.
Well, tigtog, it’s reassuring to know my wife is in that “vanishingly rare” minority – it would be very unpleasant to know what the local hospital-supported breastfeeding nazi’s put her through is happening lots of mothers.
I’ve of course no problem with breastfeeding, but how she was treated still makes me angry – and I got a lot out of sharing feeding duties.
Tony, did you note the distinction I made between latching difficulties and actual milk production difficulties? Very few women have problems with their bodies producing milk after childbirth, but actually getting that milk from the breast into the baby is frequently fraught with difficulty.
That’s where the option of using expressing devices to bottlefeed with breastmilk comes in (and you could still have shared the feeding duties). If your wife wasn’t presented with that option with non-judgmental support, then that is indeed a problem.
Nope, no expressing either – generally managed to squeeze out some colostrum straight after birth, then next to nothing. Cupboard full of plungers, suckers, you name it – a library full of books, and a bunch of extremely judgemental “support” of the “you’re not really trying, dearie” type (and, being in the bush, no access to any genuine medical advice). Did this for the first 3, just stayed out of their clutches thereafter.
So we made own way, and all 5 are healthy and seem to be happy (emo notwithstanding). Never mind – not really to the point of the post anyway. As I said, breasfeeding is a great thing. But whenever you here people talk about “breastfeeding nazi’s”, don’t doubt that they exist.
Since we’re already well down that slippery slope, why not scramble back up a bit?
Human’s milk cheese! Lovingly extracted from handpicked surrogate mothers around the world and packaged to perfection. Blue Vein Blonde? A well ripened MILF Mozzarella? Skanky Stilton? Ginger Ricotta? Busty Brie? Camemberella? Suzy Cream Cheese? La Limburger? Jailbait Cheddar? Granny’s Gouda?
I bet a lot of lot of people just went yucckkkk! and eewwwhhh! And yet we didn’t complain as infants and have no problems fixating on the containers.
Disclaimer: I have neither offspring or tits but do think any public or semi-public reverse pietà is a life affirming act.
I certainly support this campaign, but is it another case of worrying about first world problems that, while substantial, are dwarfed by the developing world issues?
The programs run by the infant milk formula producers to seduce developing world women into throwing away their milk and buying the companies’ products instead continue to kill upwards of a million babies a year. Reviving the boycott campaigns against these companies seems to me a priority. Better still would be to extend the laws on child abuse committed in foreign countries so the senior executives of Nestle et al could be jailed for manslaughter on a massive scale.