I have found that a common concern about breastfeeding among teens is that
of nursing in public. The first time I was invited into a high school class
I brought my then 3m/o daughter. I arrived shortly early to set up and, of
course, the baby wanted to nurse. When the health class teacher arrived with
the girls, all of whom were pregnant, I was sitting up front with Abby
tucked under my shirt. After I introduced myself I asked the girls to throw
out any questions they had about breastfeeding so that we could get right
down to their main concerns. As the teacher wrote the questions on the
board, it became obvious that the questions were mainly related to pain and
nursing in front of others, especially their boyfriends' male friends.

I asked if anybody had actually ever seen a woman nursing her baby. Only one
girl put up her hand - she enjoyed helping an aunt who had a new baby. When
I told the class that I was nursing my baby as we spoke, they gasped in
amazement. They truly thought that in order to breastfeed you had to take
off everything about the waist! The girls had assumed that Abby was
sleeping.

Since then I have always either taken my baby, or more recently, another
nursing mother, with me whenever I do a breastfeeding class. It is
unfortunate that so few women of any age have ever seen a woman nurse.
Modelling is one of the most effective teaching tools in our repertoire.
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E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Date: 10/11/95
Time: 10:00:38

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