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Have you experienced discrimination because you were breastfeeding your child in public? Where and when? Were you told to "take it elsewhere?"
Share your thoughts with us - we'll put our stories together, publish them here on our website, and submit it with our petition for a CLEAR policy to protect our children's rights to breastfeed in public here in the City of Toronto.
(Submit your story with your first name, email address, and age of your child/ren by emailing it in confidence to:
PUBLIC BREASTFEEDING POLICY CHANGE
breastfeeding in public
Breastfeeding in Public : RIGHTfully Ours and Our Babies'!
A few months ago, I was shocked to read about a woman who was asked to leave an Ontario Place Theatre last summer because she was breastfeeding (The Star, January 23, 2007 Issue).
I felt for her. Wasn't too long ago when I had the same fears. As a first-time breastfeeding mom, I was incredibly shy and insecure about breastfeeding my daughter in public. If we happened to be in a restaurant, I would crouch down ito a booth, cover up my baby and my breast with a blanket and just leave "air holes" for her to be able to breathe through. I would hide in fitting rooms and washrooms, in a car, behind a a bush... anything but to actually be seen breastfeeding my baby for 2 reasons:
- A mom I met at Mothercraft told me how she was told by another woman in a restaurant to "not gross other people out with that and to go to the bathroom."
- I was new at this motherhood and breastfeeding thing and had no idea what to do and how to do it properly.
See, as new moms, we face a myriad of challenges and insecurities. Understandably, a lot of us are unaware of what is right for us until we actually do it and learn from experience. However, as breastfeeding moms, wouldn't it help to know that we have a RIGHT TO BREASTFEED IN PUBLIC if we choose to? I wish I had known then what I know now!
The Ontario Human Rights Commission clearly states our rights as Nursing Mothers:
You have rights as a nursing mother. For example, you have the right to breastfeed a child in a public area. No one should prevent you from nursing your child simply because you are in a public area. They should not ask you to "cover up", disturb you, or ask you to move to another area that is more "discreet."
So if you ever happen to be in a situation where someone challenges your breastfeeding in public, quote them your RIGHTS and refer them to the:
Ontario Human Rights Commission
1-800-387-9080 (toll free)
or in Toronto:
(416) 326-9511 or
TTY (416) 314-6526,
8:30 am to 5:00 pm
Monday to Friday.Additionally, the City of Toronto has a policy called Breastfeeding on City Premises:
Breastfeeding on City (Toronto) Premises :
The city promotes women's right to breastfeed on city premises and supports employees who wish to breastfeed upon returning to work.
However, the policy is problematic because it is specific only to City Employees right now and doesn't apply to other mothers yet. Joanne Gilmore, nursing manager with Toronto Public Health said in The Star interview that
"We're proposing a new policy talking about a woman's right to breastfeed anywhere in Toronto," Gilmore said in an interview yesterday. Hopes are that such a policy would be available on the city's website, Gilmore added.
It's important for us to fight for our rights and to know what they are. More importantly, it is imperative that we let other moms know of these rights so more of us can stand up for ourselves. Our babies have a right to eat in public too (NOT in a public washroom!) without a suffocating blanket over their heads and our breasts are the perfect container and supplier of this nourishment. No one has the right to tell us to stop breastfeeding because of their personal feelings or beliefs. At least in Ontario anyway.
Comments? Join our members-only discussion group by clicking here and registering for free!
Articles:
- Policy would defend public breastfeeding
Donovan Vincent| The Star | Jan. 23, 2007 | Read more...
- Booby-trapped: breastfeeding in public is still a battle
Georgie Binks| CBC News Viewpoint | Nov. 5, 2004 | Read moreA couple of weekends ago, I was flipping through one of the Saturday newspapers and noticed, in the body of restaurant critic Joanne Kates's column, an item about a breastfeeding woman being turfed out of a Toronto restaurant. I checked the date of the paper, wondering if perhaps some 30-year-old story had become wedged in with the sushi wars. But no, Oct. 9, 2004, was the date. To this day women are still being shown the door, sometimes the bathroom door (where they can supposedly feed more discretely) at establishments when they breastfeed.
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