Should Women Be Allowed To Breastfeed In Public

From the beginning on this course, my SLP has been about breastfeeding in public. I have looked at the issues that women deal with while trying to breastfeed in public settings. I have also addressed the benefits of children that are breastfed, the most important of which is an increased immune system and decreased health issues later in life. Additionally I found social experiments where women who were breastfeeding were accosted in public, but alternatively women with low cut shirts and exposed cleavage we looked favorable upon. This controversial public health topic (breastfeeding in public) is related to environmental quality. This is easily stated, but still how can this assessment be made? According to Healthy People 2020, environmental quality is …show more content…
Going out and taking care of day to day activities, such as shopping, or day to day errands would be nearly impossible if mothers were not allowed to breastfeed publically. There needs to be an increase on education on the benefits of breastfeeding, so that when mother’s breastfeed in public there will be no controversy. According to a 2004 survey though only “43 percent — of 3,719 respondents said women should have the right to breast-feed in public places” (Associated Press, 2006). Again, the negative outlook on breastfeeding is really due to a lack of education. If the general population understood the importance of breastfeeding and its benefits perhaps public opinion would change. Specifically the United States “has one of the lowest rates of breastfeeding in the industrialized world, and one of the highest rates of infant mortality.” (NRDC, n.d.). When put in these terms, there should be an increased outpouring of support for public breastfeeding. What about those mothers who are not comfortable with breastfeeding in