What’s the story with the breastfeeding stickers I’m seeing in restaurants and rec centres?
The sticker, featuring a drawing of a Madonna-like woman, is part of Toronto Public Health’s “Anytime. Anywhere” campaign. Since 2008, some 6,100 stickers have been sent to restaurants, libraries and malls to make nursing mothers feel more comfortable, and encourage establishments to train their staff on how best to deal with prudish patrons. The decals are also a reminder that breastfeeding in public is sanctioned by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, a fact that was challenged by Ellie Karkouti, the owner of a Newmarket public pool. She assumed the no-eating-in-the-pool rule applied to everyone and asked a mom nursing her babe to cease and desist. The mom filed a human rights complaint against her, and the breastfeeding blogosphere lit up with angry comments. Still, Karkouti maintains she was in the right, proving that even in our PC age, the breastfeeding debate is as persistent as a case of diaper rash.
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Why would anyone want to breastfeed in a pool, besides to prove a point. We all have brains, its too bad some people choose not to use it.
The health department chooses not to respond to a valid request from a business owner. This doesn’t mean that breastfeeding in the pool is right… it just means that the health department is too afraid to place reaslistic guildelines.
I agree with Ann about there not being a need to breastfeed in the pool. However, The Health Department NOT responding is to the benefit of the pool operator. If charges were to be laid they would have to be aginst the pool owner not the person breastfeeding in the pool. The non-response from the health department is a statement in and of itself!
Ann, i think you are correct. All pool owners are now safe from law suits from breastfeeding moms…
Now that breastfeedin is allowed in a pool, I bet that a Mom breastfeeding in a pool will want me and my child to not splash and have fun while she is breastfeeding….. Who knows, she may go to the human rights and file a complaint against my son.
Her complaint will include: the harm that the pool water cause her child when it splashed in the babies face, the stress that the splashing placed on her while she was feeding her child and yes…. the noise of the splashing water and my son having fun in a public pool disturbed her private time with her baby.
I wonder what she will be asking for as compensation… my 4 year old’s piggy bank…..
I hope that people will NOT change their swimming pattern if they see someone breastfeeding in a pool. Its a public pool after all.
I believe that a women who is lactating would lose more milk doing a lap in the pool then breastfeeding her child in the pool. So what should all breastfeeding moms be banned because they may leak milk? What about peeing in the pool kids do that all the time. So, let’s say kids shouldn’t go in the pool since they MAY leak urine in it? Isn’t that why pools are highly chlorinated?
I don’t understand how she could be swimming in the pool while breastfeeding an infant, with nobody drowning.. so maybe they mean she was in the pool room, (perhaps older kids of hers were swimming) and she was feeding her infant on the side… breastfeeding IN the pool is unnecessary, in the same room should absolutely be allowed. Also, I didn’t get that the issue was “spilling” milk in the pool… but maybe it was.. if thats the case, then urine is certainly worse!!!
I highly doubt she was agile enough to breastfeed the baby while swimming. More likely she was sitting on the step, or on the edge of the pool, or on the deck. I’m curious where people think she SHOULD have gone? Into the bathroom?
I think a little breast milk is the least of your worries when you are swimming in a public pool.
Uh, Sam, breastfeeding while driving is hardly the same thing as breastfeeding in a pool. Seriously. And actually breastfeeding is encouraged during take off to relieve pressure in the infant’s ears.
I’m not sure what the concern here is.
Kudos to the city for supporting breastfeeding and nursing moms.
Roger… you can’t breastfeed a 2 year old baby during a takeoff. They need to be in their chair.
Breastfeeding anytime is great, the question is why do it in a pool…..why??????
in this case, approx. $50,000 of tax payer dollars was probably used to allow woman the right to breastfeed in a pool. As a tax payer, i can tell you that i would have liked that money to be used for something that actually matters.
I keep wondering how much it cost the pool owner. i am sure that she didn’t use tax money to defend herself.
I am all for the right to breastfeed in public. However,breastfeeding in a pool is very unhygienic– I’m not talking about a bit of breast milk leaking into the pool, either. There are so many chemicals in the water, and this is only in addition to how dirty the water already is (i.e. fecal matter). I think it is far more harmful for a baby to ingest dirty and chemical-laden pool water than it would have been for the baby to wait a few minutes for its mother to get out of the pool, clean her breast and then breastfeed.
Sam and Joan– yes, breastfeeding during take-off is highly recommended as it does relieve the pressure in an infant’s ears. And, Joan, what chair do you expect a baby to be in on a plane? Most airlines don’t even bother with having you purchase a ticket for babies; they just assume that you’ll hold the baby on your lap, which is what most parents do regardless of whether the baby is breast- or bottlefed. That’s why a lot of parents will check their car seat along with their luggage.
Listen Haters, the breastfeeding mother was not in the pool, she was in the pool BUILDING! – Sitting beside the pool watching her daughter’s swim class. Duh!