"That child is too old for that.

Get him on a bottle!"

     "Don’t you want to go somewhere else to do that?"

     "I don’t want my child to see that!" "That’s disgusting!"

     There’s a random sample of comments made to me by complete strangers in the 11-plus months that I nursed my son, now 3-and-a-half, and the 14-plus months I nursed my daughter, now 2. Last week was World Breastfeeding Week, and in celebration, the Durham Region Health Department ran an absolutely fantastic ad in our papers, showing a neck-to-waste picture of a woman in an evening gown.

     "They weren’t put there just to hold up a strapless dress," read the caption. The ad went on to state that breastmilk is the only food a baby needs in the first six months.

     This ad is terrific for a number of reasons. First, what draws people in like cleavage? Second, my experience says it’s often those most fascinated with cleavage who have the most adverse reaction to seeing a woman nursing in public.

     In this day and age, how could seeing a woman discretely nursing in public illicit such a response as I received? It seems amazing, in an age where people are much more accepting of images of a sexual nature in popular culture, that the very natural, non-sexual image of a woman feeding her child in what science has proven to be the healthiest way could cause such a kerfuffle.

     One instance that really stands out in my mind involved a health care professional — a pharmacist. I went to a pharmacy counter in a local department store, and asked if I could take a particular headache remedy while nursing. He looked at my then-9-month-old son, and said, "You should not be nursing him. You should have stopped at six months."

     Baloney.

     The lactivist in me took over, and I dropped off a package of information to said pharmacy the next day, in the hopes that pharmacist wouldn’t continue spouting such inaccurate garbage.

Poster Available at the INFACT Resource Cente:

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