While I never experienced any difficulties breastfeeding my child in public, I did have some interesting episodes of expressing milk in what I thought was private.
I'm a nurse, and I work in the field of home care. I never imagined returning to work would cause a problem with continuing to breastfeed, as I spend my days in my car traveling from patient's house to patient's house. Working in a rural area gave me the advantage of pulling over on a secluded road, eating my lunch or snack and expressing via a portable pump.
Wouldn't you know, though, at least once a week someone would pull off behind me and get out to see if I needed any help! At first I was mortified, I'd pull my coat around me and politely say, "No, thanks". I'm sure some of those helpful little old men thought I was doing drugs or something else illegal. I actually felt like saying, "Yeah, sure could you hold this pump for me!". In the end I found that the best place to pump was right in the middle of a public parking lot, where no one ever even glanced my way.
At least it confirmed my belief that people do still care about other people enough to see if they're in trouble on the side of the road!
Contact Danielle at abbyann@icubed.com.
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