Member of Italian Parliment Fighting for Breastfeeding Space

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006

While I think it might be best for the country if she went ahead and nursed her daughter right there in parliment ;), it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

From ANSA.it:

Poretti, a 38-year-old Florentine journalist elected for the Radical Party, first wrote to Bertinotti two weeks ago in the hope of having a baby-care room added to the array of plush facilities in the hulking building .

For the time being, between one voting session and the next, she is forced to leave the assembly every two hours or so, using a corner of the infirmary to feed two-month-old Alice.

This is a tough one on some levels. On the one hand, it's fantastic to see an Italian leader standing up for breastfeeding like this. On the other hand, I have a hard time with the "special rights" for breastfeeding moms stance in that I think it ultimately hurts our cause.

That's where the question becomes, could a bottle feeding mom bring her little one with her to parliment and take breaks to feed him/her? Or, would they need to leave the baby in the care of someone else like most moms do when they head off to work? If that's the case, then it falls under that "has a right to nurse wherever mother and baby are otherwise allowed to be" concept. In that case, it comes down to providing mom with a place to either express her milk, or yes, to go and nurse her child.

This type of law already exists in many American states and it's a great way to help promote breastfeeding for moms that eventually have to head back to work. I'm not sure I can advocate for the right of all moms to tote their tots to work with them so that they can nurse on demand though... As a work at home mom, I know just how badly productivity suffers when you're trying to give your attention to work and your child at the same time.

But...it would be a beautiful thing to see the point when breastfeeding is so universally accepted that you could sit on the floor of parliment and nurse. ;)

Labels: In the News, Lactivism, Nursing in Public

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