Breastfeeding - Back Room Nursing

Many breastfeeding mothers are unwilling to nurse in public. When they are in a public place, they may go to a bedroom or other place to nurse their baby so they don't have to nurse in front of others. The decision to nurse in public or not is yours of course, but here are my thoughts on this matter, for whatever they may be worth (which is not much, I readily admit).

• Good reasons for back room nursing:
  • You might have an easily distracted baby who does not nurse well when there are other people around. Going back to a quieter rooms may help.
  • If it's your baby's nap time, but she or he is overly excited by the company, you can go to a back room and nurse your baby to sleep. This may work better than trying to do the same when there are people around.
• Against back room nursing:
  • One of the big problems new parents face is that their opportunities for social contact are limited because they are so busy with their baby. No one has the right to make this situation even worse for the new mother by banishing a new mother to a back room for nursing her baby.
  • Many establishments do not have comfortable rooms available for nursing a baby in private. Women sometimes have to go to the bathroom to nurse their babies. No one has a right to expect someone to have to sit in a smelly and unsanitary room for feeding their baby (unless they think everyone should eat their food in the bathroom).
  • A main reason why breastfeeding is so hard for many of us if because we live in a bottle-feeding culture, and just never get a chance to observe breastfeeding as the normal way to feed a baby. If we send mothers to back rooms for breastfeeding (but not bottle-feeding!), we make this situation even worse. One of the first steps for near-universal breastfeeding (which would be a major triumph for public health!) is to establish a breastfeeding culture. In such a culture, if you happen to see a baby with her or his mother in a public place, you would expect the baby to nurse soon.
• See also:
  • Dealing with criticism

Back to the breastfeeding main page

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