why are we made to feel embarrassed about feeding our babies? that's the ONLY reason we have breasts to begin with. THE ONLY reason. as much as some people (and cultures) want, WE cannot stay locked in our homes for the rest of our lives.
a shout out to emily gillette
For Hungry Baby, Unfriendly Skies
Liza Featherstone
Just about everyone agrees that women should breastfeed their babies (if possible), but God forbid they ever leave their homes with said babies! The American Pediatric Association recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a baby's life, saying that the practice reduces diarrhea, ear infections, and meningitis, and may also protect babies against SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), diabetes, obesity and asthma. Breastfeeding is becoming a far more acceptable topic of public discussion -- even, at times, a fashionable one, with numerous celebrity moms, including Jennifer Garner, Julia Roberts, Heidi Klum, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie, crediting nursing with their speedy post-pregnancy weight loss. Yet some women do, amazingly, still encounter hostility when feeding their infants in a public place.
According to news reports, Emily Gillette, a 27-year-old New Mexico woman, says that when she attempted to nurse her baby on a Delta Airlines flight, the uptight stewardess gave her a blanket, asking her to cover up. When Gillette refused, the flight attendant threw mother and baby off the plane! Silly Emily--doesn't she know those things are for selling beer and cars? Any other public use is obviously obscene.
Breastfeeding in public is legally protected in at least twenty-eight states, according to La Leche League; many statutes -- including Vermont, where Delta so unhappily encountered Emily Gillette -- stipulate that a mother may breast-feed anywhere she and her child have a right to be. But clearly, as I once heard a civil liberties activist say, the only way to protect rights is to use them..........................
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