I must agree with Maureen Minchin when she questioned why somebody would avert their gaze *out of respect* from a mother who was breastfeeding. I remember many occaisions in the past (my last baby is now 15!) when I noticed people deliberately looking away from me while I nursed. It was most disconcerting! Whatever their intentions, their actions made me feel as if I was doing something that was inappropriate, not to say dirty. In contrast, how encouraged I was when, at a party, a woman came up to me to say how wonderful it was to see a nursing mother and to share that she was *still* nursing her 2y/o! (Why do we need to say *still*? But that is another topic for discussion!)

Deliberately not looking at a mother who is feeding her baby is more likely to stem from embarrassment or distaste rather than respect. I would not look away with respect from an eminent professor (for example), but I might well look away from somebody who was scratching their crotch!


Norma Ritter, IBCLC, LLLL, in Big Flats, NY
"If not now, when? If not us, who?"
[log in to unmask]