by Christina Good Voice

Created on: August 07, 2008

Women should be allowed to breastfeed in public areas but should use some discretion to those around her by covering up. I breastfed my three older children as babies, and I plan on breastfeeding my next baby, who'd due next month. The fact that this is still a topic of debate is ridiculous. If a baby is a breastfed baby, then how else is he/she going to eat if women aren't allowed to breastfeed in public?

The question makes me wonder what the opposing voices want the mothers to do. Do they expect the new mom and her baby to stay home until the baby is weaned, just so she doesn't offend the breastfeeding-in-public opposition?

Breastfeeding is a natural and beautiful experience for the mother and baby. Just because some people automatically think of breasts as a sexual connotation, we shouldn't have to sit back, stay home and take it.

I do agree that mothers should cover up while breastfeeding in public. Not so much to oblige the opponents of the act, but for her own privacy reasons. Especially while out at a restaurant. Plus, she doesn't want a curious 6-year-old gawking at her from across the room wondering why that woman's shirt is up and her baby is attacking her.

My two oldest children are six. With their 18-month-old brother, they had a million questions about breastfeeding. They'd seen their aunt nursing their baby cousins before, and I told them that the baby was eating, but they were even more curious when their brother breastfed.

They asked where the milk came from and if milk came out all the time. They were fascinated and they saw all the benefits themselves when they wondered why some babies drank bottles and had to drink powdered formula while their brother didn't need any of that stuff.

Even as children they understand. So if we're out in public and they see a mother nursing her baby with a receiving blanket thrown over her chest to cover them up, they don't look twice and go about their business.

Some women even those who've breastfed are uncomfortable with their husbands seeing another woman's breasts while she's breastfeeding. That's just a strange thing for me to hear.

My husband has seen the women in my family breastfeed, and knowing all the benefits of breastfeeding, he too is not perturbed to see a woman breastfeeding in public.

It's each woman's choice whether she breastfeeds or not. For me it's a special bond that only I can share with my baby, and I'm not going to give up that bond because the woman sitting at the table next to us in the restaurant can't seem to understand the fact that my baby needs to eat too.

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