Have you ever been told something that "blew your socks off?"  How did you respond at the time?  Not very well??  Well, that's probably how this mom felt.  She complied at the time, but as we all do, she went on to come up with more "appropriate" responses later.  As lactation professionals, we are stronger, more convicted and educated at how breastfeeding is best, and are not standing in that doctor's office being confronted.

Remember back to when you nursed your first baby.  I do and I know that I spend a lot of time off in someone's bedroom breastfeeding, in changing rooms of stores, and in my car before I went into places.  Probably not the picture those of you who know me would paint of me, now that you've seem me nurse anywhere, anytime.  (I even have a mental list of all the fantastic places I've nursed like on top of glaciers, in helicopters over the Grand Canyon and while being in parades, but let's not go there)  The point is that many of us grow in empowerment.  I still feel embarrassed by the story of how I  embarrassed another mother (formula fed her babies) and her mother by breastfeeding by first baby in front of them in their home.  This was after I "covered-up" and asked if they minded and they said no!  Nowadays, I don't bother to ask and I breastfeed everywhere, although I am so much better at it now that people don't often notice.  

When Kym Smythe and I were accosted and harassed at the Holocaust Museum in Wash. D.C., it was a totally different story from my first embarrassment.  Although there wasn't any legislation to stand behind, we were stubborn in our right to breastfeed, calm (well, as calm as someone can be when outraged), and direct in asking to see what ever "policy" the security guards referred to when asking us to breastfeed elsewhere.  If that had been my first breastfeeding experience, I would have probably been humiliated, cowered to the bathroom, and never would have entered the museum again in fear that my breastfeeding picture was in their security files.  

Take it easy on the mother!  From this experience may come grow a future breastfeeding counselor or LC, an activist for breastfeeding policies, or someone who breastfeeds her children on TV.

Terriann Shell

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