Poolside Breastfeeding Debate Pt.2

I just couldn’t help myself: I had to look up another news article about the Oregon woman who was persecuted for breastfeeding her 8 month old baby in the kiddie pool. UB reports: A drink at the pool stirs conflict

Eric Pippert of Oregon’s Department of Human Services has been in public pool policy since 1983, and the issue has not crossed his desk, he said. “This is the first time it’s come up in my career.”

Oregon oversees 3,300 public-use pools, which includes those in health clubs, motels and apartment buildings.

When two laws come into conflict, it’s time to ask what’s reasonable, Pippert said. “I’m pretty certain when we made this rule, we didn’t intend it to cover lactating mothers. To take that argument means, I guess, a lactating mother couldn’t come into the pool.

“By ‘no food in the pool,’ you have to say ‘no, that’s not what it means.’ Bringing food in means your can of Coke, your peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

See, that’s just what I was thinking! If you can’t breastfeed at the pool, then you can’t swim at the pool if you are lactating. You couldn’t get those milk jugs wet in that chlorinated soup of spit and everything else. Seriously. Breast milk would the LEAST of my concerns in a pool. It should be the least of anybody else’s concerns as well.

There was an inspiring reader called “zipper” from the above news article comment section who wrote:

” I have to comment and say thank you for this article I am a mom to a 8 month old of my own. She’s my first and I never even thought about not breastfeeding- being 24 and raised in a culture of breast is best. That said- once you’re faced with actually making breast feeding work you understand completely why there is a bottle At first you hide I didn’t want to be stuck home but I was totally scared of people’s opinions and reactions- so I fed her in the bathroom. And found that it was distracting (the flushing dirty and had one or two bad experiences with being harassed because I’d been in the stall too long In the middle of winter the car is a horrible place to try and nurse- like wise in the middle of summer- just did the drive across wa with baby and if you wouldn’t leave a pet in the car how can you leave my daughter and I ? A few months in I decided I was hungry and lonely and wanted to join my husband at the restaurant- I nursed covered and met mixed responses- women servers couldn’t care less- younger ones- especially male didn’t know what to do so they avoided us and fellow diners- very very critical of my choice- outraged that I’d expose myself under a cover in front of their husbands, sons, brothers- but did they know I was scared, hungry, cold, I just wanted the warm restaurant, I just wanted to be enough of a person to get to eat too. Did they know I though of them- that I wanted not to make anyone uncomfortable? Nursing mothers know you’re looking, they know it’s their boob, they know they’re undressed. All they want is for it to be ok. Thankfully I have always known it was my right to nurse in public and that the law would protect me- thank you for this article so that other new moms may know that it’s ok- really- it’s ok.
Nursing isn’t easy- it shouldn’t be harder than it has to be. Let’s not be a culture that tells women to nurse and then gets all upset when they go for it ”

Thank you, zipper. I couldn’t agree with you more!