I have breastfed in bank foyers, airport lounges, flights and trains, on railway platforms, at Kolkata’s Gariahat market, in my office, at several malls of Kolkata and outside (including the South City Mall), restaurants, food courts and clubs, and not just in private rooms.
But I have never breastfed inside toilets.
Therefore, I find it difficult to understand why mall authorities or shoppers may have a problem in “allowing” women to breastfeed at public places. Last week, a young woman in Kolkata faced humiliation at a city mall when she was denied a suitable place to breastfeed her seven-month-old child. She was asked to go to the washroom. In fact, the mall authorities posted on their Facebook page that breastfeeding is “not allowed on the floor” and that the “privacy of other people” would be compromised in the process (the message was later deleted).
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I can’t understand the argument that a woman cannot feed inside a mall or at a marketplace, that it impinges on the privacy of other shoppers, that all public spaces need to provide breast feeding mothers a private space and she needs to be restricted to that closed room while breastfeeding. If that is what a particular mother wants, then that is her choice and others — including mall authorities and shop owners — ought to be sensitive to her need – because sometimes she might need a quiet place to feed the child.
But I think we should basically be discussing (and discussing more seriously) the issue as to why a woman who is not looking for such a private space, should be prevented from breastfeeding in public.
I have always carried a churni (stole) and I was comfortable breastfeeding anywhere my child needed a feed. All I needed was a place to sit. A lot of people let me have a place to sit and have been kind and understanding. I have lived a full functional life while breastfeeding my child anywhere and everywhere.
It takes an hour at least to breastfeed especially if the child is very small and if one wants a two-hour break from feeding again. And for the mother, it can be a very arduous time.
So I have read, shopped, chatted with pals at coffee shops and restaurants, typed away on my computer at work or at home – done all kinds of multitasking that sitting with a latched on baby allowed. Taking my child everywhere I went also meant she got an exposure into the real world right from infancy – and it turned out to be great fun for her.
I joined work after my maternity leave when my daughter was four and a half months old. Doctors say that a child should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of her life and not even water should be fed during this period. I was given the same advice.
However, after six months, when it was known that my child was lactose intolerant and she hated soy milk as a substitute, I took her to my workplace. There was no crèche in the office, but I still took her there. I felt I should be able to work while I am a hands-on mother to my infant. Why couldn’t I be like the mothers in Northeast India who are hardworking, fun loving and confident women on the go? My colleagues at Radio Mirchi were extremely supportive.
My current workplace – Future Hope – is also one such place – it is extremely child friendly.
Growing up as an army officer’s daughter, I have lived across the country and I have seen mothers across the length and breadth of the country breastfeeding in market places, buses, trains, weddings… the list is endless.
In Northeast India, a mother ties the baby to her back or front with a hand woven shawl and goes to work or recreational spaces and breastfeed everywhere. No one finds it “unnatural”, uncouth or something that disturbs the privacy of other in a public space.
Since when did breastfeeding become a question of “morality”? If it is fine when a baby sucks with a straw out of a glass or bottle, why should a baby sucking on her mother’s breasts be intolerable to the eye?
[Cover photograph: Actor and model Lisa Haydon recently posted her breastfeeding photograph on Instagram]
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