Pam - My commiserations on the bad press public breastfeeding has received.
This year as our contribution to WBFW the Zim LCs did a postal survey of
restaurants in Harare (99 listed in Publicity Association list, street guide
list and popular nuewspaper list) to find out which restaurants would
welcome mothers with breastfed babies. We anticipated that this would help
to educate restaurant owners to the needs of babies AND compel them to
compete with each other.  We stated the national policy, a little about all
the nice things that breastfeeding brings, that babies need to feed often
and at irregular intervals etc.  We said that the responses would be
compiled into "The Breastfeeding Mother's Guide to Baby-Friendly Restaurants
in Harare", that no responses would also be indicated, and that the
pamphlets would be distributed to mothers through various outlets, e g
doctors' surgeries, hospitals, a children's magazine etc.  Just less than
half the restaurants responded and most of them overwhelmingly positively.
The accompanying comments included "We support what you're doing!" and
"C'mon mummies, breastfeed!"   Only two were strongly negative. Funding for
printing the pamphlet was kindly donated by UNICEF. This evening our
Breastfeeding Co-ordinator phoned to ask if it would be okay to have the
results published in the national press. Our survey originated because of a
few reports we've had of mothers being harrassed for breastfeeding in
public.  But when you take the bull by the horns and actually approach the
restaurants themselves it turns out that they may not want the negative
publicity after all ...  Now our mums have nearly 40 places where they can
go and enjoy a meal AND breastfeed their babies.

If anyone would like copies of our small pamphlet please e-mail me privately
with your address.

Pamela, Zimbabwe