Janice Reynoldds shared a media story about a hospital apology to a mother who was prevented from breastfeeding in a waiting room.  The *only* time I ever experienced discrimination, when breastfeeding my children all over Queensland as a young mother in the late-1960s/early-1970s, was in the waiting room of a bush medical clinic. I was breastfeeding discreetly while waiting to have my baby weighed, in late-1966.  However, my baby had his thumb hooked in the edge of my bulky-knit sweater to push it up and a tiny area of breast was showing, less that would  be shown in a low-cut neckline. The nurse in charge made a point of insisting I go to a private room and slammed the door on me. 
 
I breastfed discreetly in church, in other people's homes, on trains, at meetings in many areas of Queensland, at a time when breastfeeding beyond the first 3 months was unusual, and this was the only time I was removed or received an adverse comment. I also breastfed a 15-month-old on an interstate flight, with no discrimination. This was long before the 1992 Queensland legislation that specifically protected breastfeeding.  The incident in the medical centre was absolutely the only time anything like this happened to me in years of breastfeeding here in Queensland.  No one had complained, and it was the nurse who was very uncomfortable with breastfeeding.

Virginia

Virginia Thorley, OAM, PhD, IBCLC
Lactation Consultant (original cohort of 1985).
Cultural historian of the History of Medicine.
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
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