Breastfeeding in public is an act that continues to receive criticism from some people whether it is done in the street or if it is done in enclosed spaces such as museums, bars, restaurants, swimming pools, etc. This makes many women doubt whether to breastfeed their babies or children when they know that someone could bother and that in many cases look for an intimate place to do it, or that are covered to breastfeed.
However, there are four reasons why the world needs mothers to breastfeed in public, without covering the baby, and now we will explain:
1. Because babies have the right to be fed when they need it
An exclusively breastfeeding baby has no other food to take, and he does not have it because exclusive breastfeeding is the best he can receive the first 6 months of life. After this time you can start eating other things, but breastfeeding for the baby is not just food, and in situations of agglomeration, distrust, anxiety, you will also ask for breast to snuggle in your mother's arms, suck a little and regain calm.
By this I mean that a baby has the right to breastfeed wherever he is, when required, either because of hunger, or because it needs a little calm and tranquility.
There are those who invite women to do it in a sink, in a corner or in an area away from other people so that it is "more comfortable" or "does not bother". This is a discrimination for being a nursing mother and no one should allow such a deal.
Different is that the mother does want to be in privacy, but one thing is that it is an option of the mother and another that force you to do so. It is like breastfeeding rooms: mothers who breastfeed in a specific place were created they want to use them to feed their baby, not to hide all the mothers in there so that others do not see them.
The baby does not have to wait for his mother to search and find a place to breastfeed, so a mother should be able to breastfeed her baby wherever she was, because the last thing a woman should feel, being a mother, is that it has to hide from society because it is.
2. Because children have to learn what breastfeeding is
Sitting in a park with a baby to breastfeed is one of the most grateful things that can be done. Yes, it is true that some energetic or some madwoman may come to say something expletive, but it is not the most common. However, it can happen that one or more children begin to approach to ask the woman about the baby and about that strange act they are carrying out.
"Hey look, that baby is sucking her mother's tit!" And they approach, and they ask the mother what the baby does, why the tit sucks, and the mother, with the patience that characterizes the new mothers, answers the doubts to each one: "she is eating", "Because I was hungry", "Yes, he likes me a lot", "Yes, I like him a lot", "No, he doesn't bite me because he doesn't have teeth", "He doesn't bite me, although he does have teeth", "Of course , but he can't eat snacks like you and he drinks a tit, "" yes, milk comes out, "" yes, he is warm, "etc.
Surely some child will know what that is about, because he has a little brother who also sucks or because he remembers that he was not breastfeeding a long time ago, and he can help the mother to give explanations to the other children. But there is no better way to normalize breastfeeding and to teach to respect the act of breastfeeding than to allow children to see babies being breastfed and to know what it is. Hardly these children never see strange or reprehensible that a woman, in the future, breastfeed her baby.
3. Because men have to understand that feeding is another function of the chest
I don't know any man who is scandalized by watching the ads of women in a swimsuit all over the city, nor do I know any man who is scandalized when he sees women dressed in little clothes on the street, or doing top less on the beach. Surely there are some, but personally I have never heard of this happening. However, I have seen and heard men complaining that some women were breastfeeding their babies in their presence.
This is because they have very clear erotic function of the woman's breasts, but not so much the function as organ. Within each breast (I explain it in case anyone still does not know) there is a mammary gland that after delivery is responsible for producing a living liquid tissue we call breast milk which makes the transfer of nutrients and substances from the mother to the baby (probiotic and prebiotic bacteria, enzymes, hormones, immune cells and much more) to facilitate their growth, development and survival at birth.
Both erotic and organic functions represent a relative exposure of the female breast but many men like it in the first case, when they feel that their vision is directed at them, and it bothers them in the second case, when they know that it is not going addressed to them.
Hiding is a way to prove these men right, and not doing so is a way of telling them that open your mind and jump into evolution, that if we have been able to leave behind the man of cromañón, it should not cost us so much to understand this.
4. Because women learn to breastfeed babies by watching other women breastfeed
A few years ago, in a zoo in Ohio, a gorilla was born that was raised in captivity. As an adult, she became pregnant and had a baby gorilla. As a mother, she took care of her baby in the best way she knew, but it wasn't enough because he didn't know how to breastfeed her. He had never seen any gorilla breastfeed and he had no idea that it could be her who fed her baby. Your baby gorilla died.
When she got pregnant again the gorilla caregiver thought she had to do something to teach her how to breastfeed, so she called the La Leche League: several nursing mothers voluntarily went to the zoo to breastfeed in front of the pregnant gorilla, with in order to show you how a newborn baby was fed. At first she did not pay much attention to them, but as the time of delivery approached she began to be more interested in what those women were doing.
It wasn't enough: when her second baby was born, the mother started to go crazy because, again, she didn't know what she had to do. The caregiver quickly called the Milk League again and a volunteer mother ran to the zoo to help her. Slowly, he was doing step by step what the gorilla mom had to do to feed her baby: first she put the baby against her chest and put it in the right position so she could start breastfeeding, on her left arm; He took his chest with his right hand and oriented his nipple so that it brushed his lips to provoke the search reflex and open his mouth. Once the mouth was wide open, he approached the baby to his chest with a rapid movement of the arm and he began to breastfeed. The gorilla watched what she was doing and began to imitate the movements step by step, until with a sigh of relief, she looked down and saw that her baby gorilla was sucking on her chest and, finally, she was managing to calm him and feed him.
This story is known in La Leche League and is often shared when you want to explain that babies are born knowing how to breastfeed, but mothers are not born knowing how to breastfeed. You can learn to breastfeed, and although every woman knows that breastfeeding is to put the mother's breast in the baby's mouth, it is necessary to know much more.
Breastfeeding culture has existed since the beginning of our species. As soon as the first villages began to form, women began to transmit that information to each other, and then between generations. Thus, women learned from their friends, sisters and acquaintances, and from their mothers, aunts and grandmothers, who explained what it is like to breastfeed, what it feels like, how normal it is that it hurts or does not hurt, how to solve the problems, etc. When the revolution of artificial milk and the bottle arrived, women began to believe that they were not able to breastfeed, began to believe that artificial milk was better (thus promoted) and knowledge passed to health professionals, how far to help, because they didn't know much either, they confirmed the suspicions: "That's right, ma'am, your son goes hungry, give him a bottle."
Those ladies are now our mothers, and although many did breastfeed and know about it, many others did not, or did little, and cannot help today's women to breastfeed their babies.
Therefore women who are pregnant have to be able to see other women breastfeed: in support groups (ideal if you want to breastfeed your baby and know the problems and solutions that may happen), in the park, on the street, in the supermarket queue, at the bank, at the bus stop , in the subway, in the museum, in the most shabby bar and in the most luxurious restaurant,…
The world must become a place "breastfeeding friendly", that is, a friend of breastfeeding, because babies will thank you, their mothers too, and at the same time all those who still have much to learn about the substance that has allowed humanity to exist today.
Photos | iStock
In Babies and more | The hopeful reaction of people when a man insults her for breastfeeding in public, The beautiful act of a stranger helping a nursing mother who has gone viral, Normalizing breastfeeding: 12 photos of mothers breastfeeding in public places
