This past week there were mass nurse-ins all over the country to protest a mother who had been harassed by Target in November. My first inclination was excitement, I’m all about the activist activity.  I quickly joined the private Facebook group and started plotting our local nurse-in.  I’d never been to a nurse in, particularly with my own nursling.

As I started inviting other breastfeeding moms, just knowing they’d be jumping at a chance to join a nurse-in and support other moms.  Most everyone said yes, but I had a few that declined.  Of those that declined most were busy or didn’t have a nursling and didn’t feel that they could go because of that reason.  I had one mom who said that she didn’t believe in nurse-ins, despite her avid support for breastfeeding.  For the first time I thought about what it was that we were doing and what would it accomplish.  I didn’t pause for long, because in my heart I knew it was the right thing to do.

The morning of the nurse-in, I logged in to tell all the people who were attending where I’d be.  I packed up.  I brought:

• Breastfeeding law cards for our state and nation
• Breastfeeding brochures in English and Spanish
• My iPad for tweeting during the nurse-in
• Talking points
• My camera
• My nursling

I ensured I was wearing clothing were I could nurse my older nursling discreetly because it’s how I nurse, not with a cover, just not hanging out.  I also chose my public health shirt to throw in the message that breastfeeding is a part of a larger conversation about the health of a nation and a world community.

I left the house with no idea what to expect.  Would someone talk to us?  Notice us?  Ignore us?  What would the other moms be like?  Would any dads show up?

It was an amazing morning. We spent almost two hours in Target at the coffee shop. Moms, dads and babies, sitting around drinking coffee.  We met our babies’ needs by feeding them when they needed.  We talked about going back to work with a new baby, pumping, nursing around older siblings, nursing a baby with a disability, skin to skin after a cesarean birth and many more parenting topics.  In the end we decided that we weren’t sure Target even noticed us.  We had several customers stop us to say, “What an adorable baby!” or other such comments about our kids.

We also decided that we were being radical and showing exactly what the world needed to see, people being parenting, which included normal infant feeding – breastfeeding.

Do nurse-ins work?  We think so, but perhaps we’re more low key activists who simply have a differently radical agenda.

While I absolutely agree that this is a huge problem and I want it to stop, clean water is not the only way to prevent these diseases.  Breastfeeding can also play a huge part in the process.  I see it as a two fold issue.  Talk to me in the comments about your charity plans and how you support breastfeeding and/or clean water.  What can we do to make the breastfeeding part of this ad banner heard?

Target – Houston, TX

Bettina Forbes from Bestforbabes.org posted yesterday about a mom from Houston feeling harassed in her local Target store for breastfeeding her baby.  This is despite a policy in place that says breastfeeding in welcome, although there is some weird wording here.  You can read Bettina’s story here: Target Employees Bully Breastfeeding Mom Despite Corporate Policy

Michelle Hickman, the mother in the post, has started a Facebook page to rally for a nurse in at all Targets on December 28th at 10 a.m.   Best for Babes also outlines some additional cases involving Target and harassment.

Care to get in touch with Target about this, after reading the whole story, please:

Target Corporation, 1000 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN  55403

Guest Relations: (800) 440-0680

guest.relations@target.com or Target Corp. Contact Form

Washington D.C.

Another incident involving breastfeeding harassment was in Washington, D.C. Simone Maningo-Truell dos Santos was nursing her 4 month old baby in the hall at the Henry Daly Building.  There is a law that protects her right to breastfeeding, but two different guards told her she would have to stop, including telling her it was public indecency. (Thanks to @KristenCampbell for sharing this with me!)

What to Do if You’re Harassed for Breastfeeding

These two incidences are both within the last couple of weeks.  This is NOT old news.  So what do you do if you feel like you are being harassed for breastfeeding?

• Know what the law says about breastfeeding in your state or situation.
• Ask to speak to a manager or someone in charge.  Be firm but polite.
• Go above their heads when needed.
• Always document names, times, titles – any info you can get.
• Ask for help!

Have you ever experienced breastfeeding harassment?

I’ve spent the last week soaking up the information from the book Nudges by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein.  It’s a very intriguing book, and much more accessible than the original articles I read for grad school on libertarian paternalism, in case you’re wondering if it’s friendly for the masses.

So I’ve been thinking about nudges, particularly as they relate to breastfeeding, something I’ve been doing some research about in the last semester.  When I started reading the book I thought, “Ah ha!  Choice architecture – that’s what I’ve been doing as an educator this entire time.”  But it goes further than that, think about the nudges that we have and could have to potentially nudge people towards a higher breastfeeding rate. (Some of these are implemented some places and not others.)

• Skin to skin contact right after birth for all is a nudge towards breastfeeding because it can help facilitate breastfeeding.
• Having the lactation consultant see every mother.
• Not sending mothers home with formula (which is the anti-breastfeeding nudge).
• Making breastfeeding the assumption, having women opt out, rather than opt in.
• Many more…

There are currently many calls to increase the breastfeeding initiation rates and help sustain at least some modicum of exclusive and extended breastfeeding to meet the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines currently in place.  We know that breastfeeding saves lives and money. Certainly many of the nudges are resisted because of formula companies, but others are resisted because some call them drains on our freedom to choose not to breastfeed. Though the definition of libertarian paternalism is not about removing those freedoms, but simply making it easier to make the healthiest (and in case of the book, wealthiest) choices.

What breastfeeding nudges do you use?

Milk for Thought’s Latch on America Bus Tour has announced the cities for it’s first leg of the tour this week.  I was excited to see that there are a couple within driving distance from me.  Will you be going to any of these cities?

But…. There are times I do not love breastfeeding, and I’m going through one at the moment. Right now my 6 month old beauty is teething. Yes, there are ways to deel and I’ve done them all but it doesn’t make a cranky baby suddenly love the serrated edges that are breaking through her gums and it doesn’t make me love it ether. She has bitten me a couple times with her one little snagletooth but that’s not even the worst. she is treating my nipple like a piece of beef jerky and if she hasnt drawn blood yet, it feels like she will. Tonight I was gifted a TUN of cranky cries as my baby played tug of war with my already tired nipple. What she does is get a latch that would put Hoover to shame then she pulls away from my boob nipple firmly clamped in her jaw while simultaneously pushing my boob away so i feel like someones giving me an Indian sunburn on my tit. They say that when they do this you are supposed to break their latch and take a break, start breastfeeding a few minutes later. At 8 pm I don’t want later, I lay there grimacing while she pulls just praying she’ll go to sleep soon. I am not impressed!

The first month of breastfeeding felt much the same. Through pregnancy I look forward to that wonderful bonding only to find that no matter how many times I’ve breastfed before my nipples have gotten soft and a new baby needs to break them in all over again. I’ve done all the oils, salves, and such, but at the end of the day it takes my nips about a month to get used to a new baby. This last time my nipples got so raw and leaked so much I got a staph infection in my left nipple that had to be treated with antibiotics. And if you doubt it was staph, there was enough puss coming out of it to run a lab test. I was on antibiotics, pro biotics, vitamin C, placenta pills, fish oil, you name it, and through all that I nursed.

The first week is also difficult because while nursing has the amazing ability to help your uterus contract back to size, for me postpartum contractions can feel like the transition part of labor all over again. My wonderful husband would sit and rub my back in the middle of the night while I nursed just to help me through the contractions so my baby could eat.

Now, if I haven’t scared you away, let me repeat, I love nursing. These are my truths of nursing and I’ve lived through each one going on 3 times. I haven’t for a moment regretted my choice. I do not consider myself a warrior mom. I do what I love and I do it because I love it. There are two reasons moms give up on nursing, one is that they think it will be too hard, and the other is that they believe it will be too easy. A mother I know looked at me I horror when I told her that breastfeeding isn’t always smooth and simple. It was like I had said something sacrillage. Two months later her baby was getting formula, if it was this hard she must not really be making enough. She thought she was doing something wrong.

Here’s the thing. Nursing shouldn’t hurt, but it does sometimes. You can latch and unlatch but sometimes it just takes some time for you and your baby to figure it out and sometimes that figuring it out hurts. Sometimes the first month is a hell that you hardly remember two months down the line because by now nursing is great! When a new mom comes to me with nursing trouble I give them what advice I know to make it better and then remind them. ” birth was hard, now you have this beautiful baby thanks to it. Nursing can be hard at times but it is one of the greatest gifts you can give your baby and one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.” breastfeeding can be hard sometimes and just like in labor you know that it will pass and you’ll have your lovely baby, so too the difficulties will pass and you’ll have a beautiful nursing relationship.

What are some of your favorite PSAs for breastfeeding? Leave a link in the comments.

August 1-7, 2011 will be World Breastfeeding Week.  WABA has just announced the theme for this year’s celebration: Talk to Me:Breastfeeding a 3D experience.  They are focusing on the communication theme this year.

How do you communicate about breastfeeding?

I think that c-sections are great, if the mother and baby really need it, but these days it seems like it is the new “fad” to get a c-section.  People are now scheduling their births into their lives because everyone is so busy these days.  I think that scheduling c-sections or scheduling to induce labor is a scary thing.  Due dates are not accurate, and if the due date is off you might be taking that baby out of the mother way too soon.  Our class helped out at an event called “Oh Baby!” and one of the ladies told us a story about someone who had a scheduled c-section, but their due date was off and the mother was only 32 weeks, and they baby had to stay in the hospital.  I think that due dates are a scary thing, because you do not know your due date for sure, and a lot of people get anxious if they are past their due dates. 

Through this semester I kept on thinking how grateful that I was taking this class.  I think that birth is not talked enough in our country.  I think that if more women were informed about birth in our society than our system would be different.  I feel lucky that I know this information so that as I get older and get ready to have children of my own, I will be well educated on the birthing process and I can be in control and give birth the way that I want to do it.

The biopsych of birth class comes to an end; Dr. Uzelac was telling us that talking about birth in the “real world” is different than how we discuss it in our class.  After taking this class for a whole semester I have come to really be passionate about the way that birth in our country is portrayed.  When I come across different pregnant women, I am going to have to try my hardest to project my opinion in a very careful way, especially being a 19 year old college student who has never giving birth before, why would pregnant women ever take advice from me?  I look forward to coming in contact with these challenges.