Public Breastfeeding: A Mother's Experience

This article was written and submitted by an African-born resident of Maine who requested anonymity.

One day, in a hospital in the United States, my baby was crying from hunger. Naturally, I prepared to breastfeed in the waiting room. But a nurse approached me and said, “People don’t like to see a woman breastfeed in public.” Those words froze my heart. I had a newborn in front of me who needed to be fed, and I, a mother, was being forbidden to respond to this vital need.

Since that day, I developed an almost instinctive fear of breastfeeding my child in public. Often, when he cried from hunger, I would freeze under the gaze of others, unable to perform this natural act. I had to find humiliating solutions: locking myself in my car to feed him in uncomfortable positions, or covering myself completely with a blanket, sweating from the heat while my baby was also uncomfortable. All of this simply because some people consider public breastfeeding to be inappropriate.

What strikes me most is the contrast with what I knew in my home country. There, breastfeeding in public is not only accepted but encouraged. When a baby cries in a public space, everyone calls out to the mother: “Feed him! Don’t you see he’s hungry?” The community spontaneously supports the mother. Someone gives up their seat so she can sit comfortably, another person offers to hold her bag, and even men help by making the situation easier. Exposing her breast to feed her baby is not seen as shocking or shameful, but as a normal, human, and vital act that everyone respects.

This cultural difference is enormous. On one side, a society that judges and shames mothers; on the other, a society that supports and assists them.The question I ask myself is simple: why should a mother feel ashamed of feeding her child? Breastfeeding is not a whim, it is not a selfish choice – it is an immediate response to a fundamental need. A hungry baby cannot wait.

If some people do not want to see a woman breastfeed in public, then at least proper spaces should be provided in public places: hospitals, train stations, shopping centers, parks. Offering mothers a dignified and comfortable place to breastfeed would be the minimum. But the real change would be to transform our collective mindset. Breastfeeding is nothing indecent. On the contrary, it is one of the most natural and essential acts.

Every society has a duty to protect and support mothers. Judging, hiding, or forcing them to isolate themselves deprives them of a fundamental right and unnecessarily endangers the well-being of children.

I dream of a world where no woman will ever have to choose between the gaze of others and the hunger of her child. A world where public breastfeeding is no longer seen as scandalous but for what it truly is: an act of love, health, and dignity.

In the West, public breastfeeding is still often met with judgment and constraints for mothers. In Africa, it is recognized as a natural act supported by the community. The issue is not only about providing spaces for breastfeeding but about transforming mindsets: respecting and protecting mothers everywhere ensures the health and dignity of our children.