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Galley Gossip: A question (and a poll) about breastfeeding on the airplane
Dear Heather,
Is it okay to breastfeed on the airplane--specifically take-off and landing. Do the flight attendants allow it? Do you need to cover up?
Maggie R.
Dear Maggie,
Of course it's okay to breastfeed on the airplane! And if you are going to do it, take off and landing is the best time to do it. A constant swallowing motion will help ease those little ears in a pressurized cabin when a pacifier just won't cut it.
While flight attendants do allow breastfeeding, there are always a few bad apples in the bunch who may throw a hissy fit if you are showing too much skin - or any skin at all. Therefore I suggest you cover up with a blanket you've brought from home. Don't depend on the airline to provide you a blanket, since most airlines do not carry blankets anymore and some even charge for blankets. Not to mention the filth and bacteria that probably live on those synthetic blankets. Or just use whatever you want to keep those prying eyes off your chest. Trust me, you are not imagining those glares, and even worse, those who stare.
"A man can not not look at a breast. If I see a breast I have to look at it. It could be an eighty year-old woman, but if there's a nipple involved I'm looking. I'm sorry, I can't help it, a breast is a breast," said the husband a man who prefers to remain anonymous.
Unfortunately (or would that be fortunately?) not everyone feels the same as the man above, especially when the breast in question belongs to a woman caring for a child. Sure it's socially acceptable to come onboard scantily dressed (and whine about the airlines not having blankets) and flaunt it down the aisle, but to use that same breast to feed a hungry baby is still a tad bit controversial for some reason. STILL.
Your question, Maggie, reminds me of an incident I experienced aboard a flight from New York to Los Angeles just a few months ago...
I was sitting on the jumpseat chatting with a passenger, when another passenger came to the back of t
he airplane carrying an infant in her arm and holding hands with a little girl who looked to be about two or three. The young mother stood in front of the lavatory door squinting.
"It's vacant," I told her.
She blushed. "I need to breastfeed, so it may take awhile. Just knock if someone needs to use the bathroom and I'll come out."
I gave her a look, the are-you-crazy-look, because as a mother of a two year-old I know it's not easy sharing that tiny space just to change a diaper, let alone sharing it with a toddler and an infant who needs to be fed. Seriously, no one should be stuck in that germ infested port-o-potty for any length of time, particularly a newborn!
"You don't want to do it at your seat?" I asked the mother of two very quiet children, and when I asked this question I could feel the eyes of the other flight attendants glaring at me. I looked at them, smiled, and then looked back at the passenger. "Because you can do it at your seat. If you want. But if you don't want to that's fine also."
"Well...there's a little boy sitting beside me and...I don't know...I'll just go in here."
"It's up to you," I said, and like that the lavatory door shut and the vacant sign changed to occupied.
I know a lot of people who are uncomfortable with the idea of a breastfeeding mother sitting next to them, or even near them, on the airplane. It's normal to feel that way. But it's also normal to breastfeed a baby! Even on the airplane.
"Yeah well I once had this woman on my flight pull down the top of her sundress and breastfeed a child that was big enough to sit in the seat. Right out in the open. She wasn't hiding a thing. The kid looked to be about five or six years old!" my mother said when I told her about what I was writing.
Thankfully most mothers who breastfeed are usually very good about doing what needs to be done without anyone knowing it's even happening. Sure there are a few mothers out there who are not discreet, who do not care to be discreet, mothers who make even me uncomfortable, especially when I have to reach over the boob to place a drink on the tray table, but the majority of mothers I come into contact with feel a little weird about breastfeeding on an airplane, just as weird as you do about seeing a baby being breastfed on the airplane. But a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do! Better a breastfed baby than a crying baby I say. So unless the kid is big enough to....well...you know, JUST BIG, as in real big, give the mom a break! It's not easy traveling with a baby.
I do it all the time and I don't care what people think! I do it, but I'm very discreet about it I don't mind, as long as I don't have to watch Keep that boob and that baby far away from me! Who cares? What's the big deal?
Photo of mother and child courtesy of Bertabetti
Filed under: Airlines, Galley Gossip
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Crystal Dec 3rd 2008 7:04PM
Sorry Gingy and Jen, but you don't have the right to not be offended. I find people chewing with their mouth open, guys with hairy backs, and perfume/cologne offensive, but I what can I do....
And to equate going to the bathroom and nursing? Sorry, but breastmilk isn't a biohazard (although technically I don't think urine is either, but it is always treated as so by "the professionals" (docs, labs, etc))
Breastmilk needs no special handling as such so to compare it is ludicrous.
Actually it is usually people with more education who breastfeed (and who are higher on the economic scale) so the fact that it is offensive to you and this statement, "Lay on their backs and procreate?", tell me a little something about you.
Regards :)
CoverUp Dec 4th 2008 1:57PM
Your smarmy response tells me a lot about you. They have no right to be offended? O Wise One, why don't you and the brood mares like you simply cover up, just a little, and have at it. Because it is all about YOU and YOUR rights.
Using the toilet and breast-feeding are both very private and should be done privately.
Crystal Dec 4th 2008 4:43PM
I didn't say they don't have the right to be offended.
I said they don't have the right NOT TO BE offended. Very different.
I actually bought nursing shirts with my kids and most of the time no one could tell when I was nursing, but that was my choice. The more people are used to seeing it, them more "normalized" it will become (In Victorian times "Clothing covered the entire body and even the glimpse of an ankle was scandalous."-wikipedia) Most nursing women show less skin than the average nightclubbing top, let alone a beer commercial, Victoria's secret ad, even car commercials. It's a baby using what it is supposed to. It wasn't created/evolved to be a "man's toy".
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/178278/new_constitutional_amendment_passed.html?cat=60
Traytable Dec 3rd 2008 10:29PM
I think the bathroom comment was meaning that the act of going to the bathroom is also 'a natural thing' like breastfeeding, yet just because it is 'natural' doesn't mean that people do it in public view. Of course, this brings up a whole other set of arguments including public decency, laws etc etc... But I don't think the bathroom comment was meant to say that breastfeeding is a hazard of any sort..
yes the mother has the choice to cover up but to not cover just to 'make a statement' or 'stir things up' should not be any different than the person who leaves the bathroom door open 'just for a laugh'... I wouldn't ask a mother to cover up but yes, sometimes they do make me (and the passengers) uncomfortable. Some people do not want to watch a private thing such as this, and that is THEIR choice also. Sure, tell them not to look, but SOME moms make it unavoidable because they can be very 'in your face' with it. (Not all, but SOME)
Carrie Dec 4th 2008 11:12AM
I don't see what the big deal is. Most people I see breastfeeding are discrete, and courteous. I can understand the concern about children seeing it (although it's ridiculous- the paranoia about our bodies and sex is part of the problem with this country), but most women I have seen DO cover up, and do act decently.
As is usual in these cases, it's the offended people who cause more real problems than do the supposed offenders. As a woman I would breastfeed (and cover up) but no one would prevent me doing it. It's a breast, for pete's sakes. You'll allow your kids to watch horrible violence on television, but a breast scares the daylights out of you. That disturbs me more than anyone ever did breastfeeding.
Jonathan Dec 4th 2008 4:11PM
I thought we were talking about Breastfeeding on an Airplane. In which case how many people could inadvertently see this woman breast feeding?
The people in the seats next to her and in the same row? In my experience not the people in the seats in front or behind. Those walking up and down the aisle? Well their glimpse should be brief as they pass by and they should be looking where they are going anyway.
If it really offends you that much, and you have no choice but to see it, then politely ask if she could cover up a little and explain why.
Yes she has a right to do it and yes you have a right not to see it but lets have a little give and take here. Were all rational, sensible people aren't we?
Oh hang on.. scrub that last bit. I forgot that people stop being sensible and rational when they board an aircraft.
Blondie Dec 4th 2008 8:48PM
It's a breast! What is the big deal????
Cherie Dec 5th 2008 2:15PM
In 1984 the airlines told me to breastfeed or use a pacifier to help my baby during take-offs and landings. No one ever told me not to nurse or to cover up. It is, or at least was, in all of the travel literature about how to make traveling with an infant easier for the child's delicate ears and you. The same in 1994 through 1996, sometime after that all of this "You're offending me" stuff starts turning up! This age of political correctness about everything normal is getting pretty ridiculous. Breastfeeding is not a "natural" thing like sex or going to the bathroom. It is the normal way of feeding a child. Plain and simple. Not a very private act. Women are not getting off or trying to be exhibitionists, they are just doing the NORMAL thing. I don't see people going behind closed doors every time they want to eat or even have a little coffee break.
Bottles offend me. To see a mom wiggling a bottle in and out of her baby's mouth to make him be quiet while he is sitting in that plastic bucket in the shopping carts, crying to be held, is beyond ignorance and selfishness. Wear them in a baby sling and you'll have more room in your cart and have a happier baby.
Cherie Dec 6th 2008 11:44AM
It is definitely ok to breastfeed on an airplane. And the fact the a child might see what is going on should have no bearing on that fact. Children actually see breastfeeding as normal if not shielded from life. A breast being used for what God meant it to be used for is very healthy for them to see and learn if they didn't know it already.
Sandra Dec 6th 2008 9:22PM
Cherie - I'm replying to you because you're last in the string of posters who seem to think it's perfectly all right to whip out a breast any time anywhere because it's the "normal" way to feed a child, whereas a bottle offends you. Others seem to think that it's prudery which motivates some posters to ask that mothers feed discretely, while others are grousing about filthy blankets being the reason for lack of discretion. If you bring your child, along with the equipment the child will need, why not pack a clean blanket that you can tent over your child and your breast? The automatic assumption that it creates a smothering atmosphere is ridiculous - it can be done in such a way as to maintain the privacy of all involved - mother, child and potential audience. I'm sorry to say that those mothers I have seen who feed indiscreetly have clearly done so for the exhibitionistic value, whereas others who come properly equipped, with a small cover of some sort, are clearly more in tune with the bonding that goes along with breastfeeding, which is, after all, a one on one experience, not meant to be "shared" as so many of the posters appear to think is some sort of generosity on their part - twaddle, utter and complete twaddle.
Cherie Dec 8th 2008 10:40AM
On a plane, who is going to see you anyway, one or two people?
Blankets do have a smothering atmosphere on some children. My daughter never had a problem with a small receiving blanket or cloth diaper, but my boys would not stand for it, they would use an arm and toss it off so that it would become a struggle if I kept putting it back, then everyone would see what was going on. So with a simple nursing top, dress or slits in my undershirt and another shirt on top I could just open or raise the shirt to nurse. I highly doubt that you have really seen true exhibitionism in breastfeeders. Just someone, whom you saw as showing some breast, more breast than you were comfortable with seeing. Clearly the babies head would have covered the nipple and areola and probably most of the breast, even if it were a strapless dress, top or bathing suit that was pulled down from the top. The head replaced the material that had previously been covering the bits that you didn't want to see.
Didn't you ever hold conversations, read or do other things while you nursed? Every breastfeed is not about cooing, bonding and eyes only for each other. Many times your little one is hungry, needs settled or needs time but you are in the middle of entertaining or getting dinner ready. The good part about breastfeeding is you are still the one feeding your baby, instead of making someone else do it. Baby is getting the contact and still, life is not totally disrupted.
sandra Dec 8th 2008 10:17PM
Cherie - I do appreciate how difficult it might have been for you in a public place to keep placing a towel or blanket over your boys' heads as they threw them off; nonetheless, being in a public place, it's just one of those things you needed to have contended with more ably rather than just saying "oh well, he doesn't like it and in a moment or so his head will cover my breast anyway".
I hope that you can equally appreciate that I, and many other posters here, have seen mothers whose sole focus is not the child's feeding - that's secondary. They are quite clearly exhibiting themselves under cover of "natural feeding rights". I nursed my own child and I had to make dinner and enterain others who came to dinner and fly with my child, but I never blithely walked around with him attached to my chest in public: there was always a way to do so in privacy. If you read your history a bit more thoroughly, you'll find that 18thC and 19thC mothers were discreet, contrary to what Crystal intimates in her comments about ankles being provocative then. I'm quite sure that a nursing mother would have been more than provocative in those times: it was considered public indecency. Most posters agree that a mother should be allowed to nurse her child, but most also seem to be saying that discretion is equally desirable with the exception of you and Crystal, that is.
Whether or not some women wear such extreme clothing as to expose most of their skin isn't the question: a modicum of appropriate modesty is and as long as there are people, including children, around to witness the immodestly fed child, then you mothers who are still breastfeeding and by choice not doing so discretely will just need to put up with the unwelcome gawking.
Heather Dec 9th 2008 9:11AM
Hi HP! It's me, the other f/a Heather blogger. Gosh, it's been a while since I've done any blogging. I'm so excited for all your success! Anyway, my baby is 4 months old now (gasp!) and we've already non-revved 5 or 6 times. He's usually asleep for pushback, gets hungry in the middle of the flight, and sleeps through final descent. I always feed him at my seat and I don't really care if I cover up. And as gross as it once seemed to me, I don't care if my coworkers see what I'm working with either, lol!
It's been great catching up with your column. Be safe and fly fast!
Traytable Dec 10th 2008 12:57AM
I find it interesting that Cherie defends her right to not cover up, yet criticises mothers who choose to bottlefeed their baby or to not wear them in a baby sling. Some mothers, like my friend, are unable to do so due to back injuries. So you are entitled to your choice not to cover up but they are not entitled to bottle feed? I think someone needs to think about what they are saying.
We are not insisting that feeding should not be done, just that sometimes awareness of those around you goes a long way toward promoting a peaceful atmosphere on the aircraft. One flight, your fellow passengers may not care, another flight, it might upset them. Just be sensitive, they are not critiscising your choice to feed, it's just that some people are not brought up to see it as something to be done in front of others.
And before all the 'if they don't like it they can go back to their own country' comments start, just think maybe attitudes like those are part of the reason that flying has become so unpleasant for everyone involved these days.