Monday 18 May 2009

Breastfeeding's essentially the same as eating a sandwich, right?

Council to change breast-feeding guidelines

Leisure centre staff will be given new guidelines after a mother complained she was asked to leave a pool while breast-feeding her son.

The Post reported how Laura Whotton, 26, from Carrington, was told she could not feed the boy at the poolside in the John Carroll Leisure Centre in Radford because it was a public area.

A city council spokeswoman later told the Post that breast-feeding breached its strict rule of no food and drink by the poolside.

But now David Trimble, the council's portfolio holder for leisure, culture and customers, has said: "I think we need to change this.

"We shouldn't be treating mothers the same as someone who's eating and drinking."


You think? Good that they're changing the guidelines, sad that this wasn't BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS to begin with.

I also find it interesting that the reason given at the time was "it's a public area" which was later changed to "actually, we have this strict rule about drinking stuff by the pool..." I suspect that's their attempt to soften the pool employee's actual reason for approaching this woman: breasts at a swimming pool are great to look at if they're slightly concealed by a bikini, icky if they're serving their natural purpose.