Fun Walk

Bebe au Lait sponsors and donates to many select causes throughout the year. Yesterday we were the proud sponsors of one particular cause that is close to my heart...our little girls' elementary school! The girls are always thrilled when i help out at school and to be selfish, i love the way they make me feel when I'm there :-)

More from Bebe au Lait

As you might have guessed, I work closely with the Bebe au Lait group. As a Style Coach I have a different perspective to offer. Paired with their creative team's keen eyes for beauty, texture and patterns and you have style, luxury, and function for parents. And now they have more ways to offer that. Here are some shots at the recent trade show showing you the booth as well as the new Double Bib available in time for the holidays this year. The Double Bib manages to do its job while being soft, flexible and free of crazy clasps since it operates gracefully with the help of encased magnets. The lovely blonde is Claire, one of the founders of Bebe au Lait. The baby is Soren, the son of one of the boutique owners we met with.

Breastfeeding Awareness Week, and Month

I read this in the NYT on 8/1 and was a bit shocked by the comments section, wow, this is still a really hot topic. The Bebe au Lait nursing covers provide moms the opportunity to nurse, or pump, in a chic cocoon of privacy regardless of the situation--subway, during a dinner party or even in their office. Maybe I should send one to the author, in fact, I will. Here's to moms everywhere that find a way to nurse their babies anytime and anywhere they need to and a thank you to Bebe au Lait for donating covers to rallies nationwide.

August 1, 2008, 4:34 pm
A Subway Ride to Support Breastfeeding Rights

By Sewell Chan
Feeding on the Subway Advocates and new mothers rode the A subway train to bring attention to World Breastfeeding Week in 2006. (Photo: Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times)Today is the start of World Breastfeeding Week, and partly to mark the occasion, about 30 women nursing infants rode the A train from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia in Washington Heights to Nostrand Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. There, they exited the subway and joined a rally at Restoration Plaza.

But the women were not taking part in the annual subway ride, held since 2004, merely to demonstrate their right to breastfeed in public. (Since 1994, it has been legal for women to breastfeed anywhere in public — “irrespective of whether or not the nipple of the mother’s breast is covered during or incidental to the breastfeeding” — under the state’s Civil Rights Law.)

The women were advocating for the Breastfeeding Bill of Rights, a legislative proposal that has passed the Assembly in Albany but has stalled in the State Senate, in part because of concerns raised by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The law would affirm that pregnant women have the right to information about the “nutritional, medical and psychological benefits of breastfeeding”; the right to stay with their babies immediately and continuously after delivery “to facilitate beginning breastfeeding immediately”; the right to refuse bottle feeding for their newborns in hospitals or other health care facilities; the right to be informed about and refuse any drugs that may dry up breast milk; and the right to “refuse any gifts or take-home packets, distributed by the maternal health care facility, that contain commercial advertising or product samples.” (There has already been a strong push to eliminate baby formula samples from hospital gift bags.)

Most of the legislation affirms what is already on the books in state laws or regulations, but the bill’s sponsor, State Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, said the proposal “codifies mothers’ rights to breastfeed into a single, concise document and bans commercial interests from influencing new mothers’ choice of breastfeeding.”

Ms. Krueger criticized a fellow state senator, Kemp Hannon, Republican of Long Island, saying he “has kept the Breastfeeding Bill of Rights bottled up in committee for too long,” and noting that the Assembly has twice passed the bill, the last time unanimously.

In a phone interview, Mr. Hannon said he was not opposed in principle to the legislation, but was sensitive to concerns raised by obstetricians and gynecologists about the wording of the proposal. Some of the language concerning access to information, he said, could be read to mean “interference in the practice of medicine.”

Senators Krueger and Hannon both said that the bill’s supporters had tried to address the doctors’ concerns. Ms. Krueger gave him stacks of paper toward the recent end of the legislative session, Mr. Hannon said, documenting how the bill mostly enshrined provisions already contained in state laws or regulations.

“It’s a fine idea, but the implementation is something you have to be very cautious about,” Mr. Hannon said. “You can’t practice medicine by legislative enactment.”

He added that he would be willing to have the Standing Committee on Health, which he leads, take a look at the bill if the doctors’ concerns are addressed. “The goal is quite laudatory,” he said, while adding, “I think we should leave the practice of medicine to people who are licensed to do that.”

Ms. Krueger said the bill represents a consensus among health care providers, nutritionists, lactation specialists and others involved in the issue, including the New York City Breastfeeding Promotion Leadership Committee, a working group that includes government agencies, nonprofit groups and health care providers.

The committee includes groups like the Black Women’s Breastfeeding Alliance, the Bronx Breastfeeding Committee and La Leche League International, which focus on black and Hispanic women.

Traditionally, white women and middle-class and affluent women have been far more likely to breastfeed than minority women and women from working-class or poor backgrounds. Many working women find breastfeeding to be too time-consuming or complicated.

The dispute appears, so far, to be one of language and not ideology.

The American Academy of Pediatricians recommends breastfeeding an infant through the first year, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists supports has endorsed breastfeeding because it reduces the risk of ovarian and breast cancers, adult-onset diabetes and osteoporosis.

Studies suggest that more than two-thirds of mothers breastfeed after being discharged from the hospital, but the proportion drops dramatically after six months. Hospital-based programs that encourage breastfeeding have been shown to result in women breastfeeding for longer periods.

Breastfeeding in Public

Most new mothers worry about the idea of nursing in public. While we at Bebe au Lait believe women should have the right to nurse in any place where they see fit, there are a surprising number of people and organizations that do not share this belief. Most of these anti public breastfeeding arguments boil down to the fact that the breast is exposed, and as such, can be considered offensive. The voices on the other side of the argument deny these claims, and of course have several arguments to counter the anti public breastfeeding movement.

Let’s take a quick look at these arguments:

Anti-Public Breastfeeding Movement says:

• Breastfeeding requires baring a breast, and as such, can be considered offensive.
• Breastfeeding releases bodily fluids, and is not appropriate for the public.
• Breastfeeding attracts too much (wrong) attention.

Pro-Public Breastfeeding Movement says:

• Because it is essential to nurse a baby several times throughout the day, it is not always practical to nurse in private.
• Private spaces (such as bathrooms) are not always clean and comfortable, or even set up properly to allow women to breastfeed.
• The breast is not exposed during breastfeeding, as the baby usually covers the nipple, areola, and lower portion of the breast.
• Babies have the civil right to be fed when necessary, and mothers have a civil right to provide breast milk to their babies whenever necessary.
• Women should not be ashamed of breastfeeding, or the attraction it creates.
• The law is mostly on our side.

We have now seen both sides of the argument, and you probably already know what side you’re on. Let’s take a look at the legal side of the argument, and more specifically the laws governing public breastfeeding.

In general, the law is on the side of women who choose to breastfeed in public. However, here are some important facts to consider:

Private property is different from public property. In other words, owners of private property have the right to decide what appropriate behavior on their own property is. Because of this, some businesses have been known to deny women the right to nurse on their property. Always be respectful of a private property’s owner’s policies on breastfeeding.

Nursing in public is likely to draw attention to you at some point. Please understand that some people have strong opinions about this practice, and by breastfeeding in public, you may be subject to negative reactions, comments, or stares.

In many cases, the argument against public breastfeeding is nullified if some sort of cover-up is introduced. You will find that businesses are much less likely to have a problem with you breastfeeding on their premises if you cover up. In addition, you will likely receive fewer negative reactions and fewer stares if you cover up.

For a detailed summary of the laws in place governing public breastfeeding, please click over to the National Conference of State Legislatures’ page about the 50 states’ specific breastfeeding laws.

If you do choose to nurse in public, let’s take a look at some courtesies and solutions you can extend to those around you while engaging in public breastfeeding.

1. Please try to be discreet in public. While we believe in a woman’s right to decide how much (or how little) to cover during nursing, many people do not share the same view. It does not help our position if we offend the people we are trying to convince.
2. If nursing on private property, please ensure it is OK with the owners or managers of the property. If you happen to be a patron at a business, please be respectful of the policies in place. However, don’t forget about your own position! Make it known that you have no intention of returning or referring your friends to a business that discriminates against you choosing to breastfeed on their property.
3. Try to avoid arguing with people who take offense to breastfeeding in public, as it will likely anger the offended person, upset your baby, and do nothing for your cause.

Solutions:

Our Bebe au Lait nursing covers are excellent solutions for women who wish to breastfeed in public without exposing the breast to people in the vicinity. Even some of the anti-public breastfeeding crowd has embraced our nursing covers as a solution for mothers who wish to nurse in public.

We have a wide variety of designs available under two brand names: Bebe au Lait, and Hooter Hiders.