Should Women Breastfeed In Public? A Viral Debate Leaves Women Arguing About Whether It's Appropriate

One of the first things most women have to learn after giving birth to their baby is how to breastfeed—and breastfeed often. In the first few months of life especially, your infant needs to feed multiple times a day and it can be a physically tiring endeavor. Breastfeeding, one of the most natural and beneficial practices in human development, offers a multitude of advantages to both mother and baby. Our ancestors used to breastfeed their children for years, sometimes even up to 4-6 years old. Today, health organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) suggest exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, followed by continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods for up to two years or beyond.

From a nutritional standpoint, breast milk is the gold standard for infant nutrition. It's a complete source of nourishment, tailored to meet the infant's requirements. It contains the perfect balance of proteins, fats, vitamins, and carbohydrates, along with numerous bioactive compounds like antibodies and hormones. Importantly, the composition of breast milk dynamically changes to suit the infant's developmental stages.

Breastfeeding is pivotal for the baby's immune system. The first milk, known as colostrum, is rich in antibodies and leukocytes that protect the newborn against infections and diseases. It also promotes the development of the baby's own immune system. Studies suggest that breastfed infants have a lower risk of infections, diarrhea, respiratory illnesses, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). When babies get sick, their saliva sends a signal on their mother's nipple to produce the appropriate antibodies that will help them heal quicker.

Breastfeeding carries benefits for mothers as well. It aids in postpartum recovery, helps the uterus return to its pre-pregnancy size, and may reduce postpartum bleeding. In the long term, breastfeeding has been linked to a lower risk of breast and ovarian cancers, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, it can contribute to natural birth spacing, due to its impact on postpartum fertility. Of course there are women who are not able to physically breastfeeding and this doesn't make them any less of a mother. There are plenty of alternatives that ensure their babies are getting necessary nutrition. But that doesn't make it any less true that breastfeeding is the best nutrition you can offer infants.

Should Women Breastfeed in Public?

Because breastfeeding must be done very often in the first stages of a baby's life, many mothers struggle to figure out how to breastfeed their infant often enough while still managing their everyday life. This has resulted in a heated conversation about whether breastfeeding mothers should nurse their infants in public. Podcast host and social media influencer Isabella Riley Moody gave her opinion on the matter.

"I find it so weird when women breastfeed in public. Like you can’t have bottles prepared before you leave the house? Put your juggies away," she tweeted on May 15.

Granted, Isabella admits that she is a troll, so many of her takes on social media are intentionally meant to spark disagreement and discussion—and she's quite successful at it. She is also a wife and an expecting mother, so this topic ended up becoming more than a way for her to get under people's skin. She used this controversial tweet to lean into a conversation about whether breastfeeding women should be nursing their babies in public settings.

Her tweet garnered multiple heated responses, mostly from mothers who have spent many months or even years breastfeeding their children. Some tried to make Isabella see that it's not always so easy to bring bottles on the go, while others were downright offended by her statement.

"Some babies reject bottles. There's also a difference in just letting them hang out and wearing clothing to facilitate discreet nursing. I preferred private, because burping, spit-up were frequent concerns, but when it's not an option, there is a way to do it where no one knows," Dana Loesch replied.

"Yes I understand that and agree with everything you said. My issue is with women who let it all hang out verses women who cover up. I should have made that clear," Isabella clarified in her response.

"It takes skill, but yes breastfeeding can be done discreetly. Packing bottles of breastmilk when you don’t know how long you’ll be away or going to a bathroom isn’t always feasible. On a flight, for example, you’re not going to go in that disgusting bathroom to feed your infant," Allie Beth Stuckey added.

However, not everyone was on board with Isabella's sentiment.

"You eat in public, don’t you? Why shouldn’t a baby? I didn’t use bottles for my baby, I exclusively breastfed her. Which means she ate on the go. If you view a breastfeeding mother so sexually that you can’t stand it in public, that’s your degrading view of women as sex objects," Liz Wheeler replied.

And so began a couple days worth of arguing on Twitter about whether women should be whipping out their breasts in public, even if it's for the sake of nourishing their babies.

I don't think there is any person out there who would want to deny mothers the chance to feed their babies in a public setting. However, many mothers pointed out that there is a modest, appropriate way to nurse your baby if you need to. There's a huge difference between taking out your bare breasts in front of strangers without any discretion or care, and finding a somewhat private corner of whatever environment you're in and using a cover-up or blanket (or extra jacket or towel or whatever you have on hand) to conceal your breasts from strangers in order to accomplish two things at once: feed your baby and keep your private parts private. This of course takes planning ahead of time—but doesn't everything when you're a mother of small children?—by packing cover-ups in your diaper bag, making sure you're wearing appropriate clothing, etc. Other precautions can be taken, such as going into a bathroom (if there's a clean one nearby), finding a quiet corner away from crowds, or even simply turning away from groups of people around you. There really is no reason for a woman to expose her nipples to the world in order to nurse her child.

I have been nursing my daughter for 19 months and I've never run into a situation where my breasts were exposed to people around me during the many times I've had to breastfeed her. I've also been around many different moms in public who have done the same. Even if if I've had to breastfeed my daughter in the middle of a restaurant, I have used cover-ups to ensure my body is kept private and my daughter even has some privacy to eat.

Breastfeeding Is Natural, So Why Try to Cover It Up?

However, there are still some moms who insist that we shouldn't have to even cover ourselves in public. We should be able to breastfeed our babies in the light of day. There's nothing to be ashamed of! After all, breastfeeding is a natural, healthy bodily function, so we shouldn't be ashamed of it, right? Just because something is natural and healthy doesn't mean that it should be made public and it doesn't mean it can't cross over into the territory of crass. This idea is derived from the feminist sexual revolution, which claimed that no bodily function or bodily desire is off limits as long as it's consensual.

Sex is a natural, healthy bodily function between a married couple. Does that mean it should be plastered all over the internet in the form of porn? Does that mean sex can never be crass or inappropriate between a husband and wife? Absolutely not, on both counts. Similarly, breastfeeding is a natural part of motherhood that is beautiful, intimate, and precious. But this doesn't mean that it should be broadcasted for people to see. And yes, breastfeeding can absolutely cross over into the territory of crass even though it is meant to be natural and beautiful. For example, if a woman is sitting in a public setting and there are men and children around, and she lowers her shirt and bra to expose her bare breasts and nipples in order to feed her baby, that would be inappropriate and crass. Not because she is feeding her baby, but because she is doing it in a way that exposes private parts of her body.

Another common response that women have who oppose modest breastfeeding is, "We need to desexualize breasts. It's not sexual to breastfeed children, and if men find it to be sexual, that's their problem." Regardless of whether you agree or not, breasts have a sexual connotation. They are a robust part of a sexual experience between men and women. No matter how much some women want their breasts to be desexualized, they will never completely lose their sexuality. Just because you may not find your breasts sexual doesn't mean that strangers in public settings won't. The sexual revolution taught us that we shouldn't have to police the way we dress and carry our bodies because it's men's responsibility to not get sexually aroused. But if you view your body as sacred and private, there are ways to guard your body (especially its private parts) from men (especially perverted ones) so that you are not objectified and sexualized.

Unfortunately, we live in a fallen human world in which there are plenty of men who will sexualize breastfeeding. In fact, this is a phenomenon that many women have taken full advantage of online. There are women who run an entire OnlyFans account based on lactation. That means they breastfeed their children online, with their bare breasts exposed, and men pay to watch every second of it. We would like to live in a world that doesn't see breasts as sexual, but that will never happen.

Will Breastfeeding in Public Normalize It?

Many women argue that breastfeeding in public without any shame or interest in covering up will encourage more women to breastfeed their own children. However, there is no data or evidence to back this up. In fact, the opposite may be true. It's safe to say that we see many more mothers who are comfortable breastfeeding openly in public today than ever before, largely due to the "free the nipple" movement and the feminist sexual revolution that made women believe it was empowering to free their bodies from the chains of modesty. And yet, data shows that breastfeeding has largely been on the decline in the last 100 years, and before data was even being collected, there were likely even more women breastfeeding. In other words, in the eras when fewer women breastfed openly in public, there were more women in total who were breastfeeding their children.

If anything, this conversation about breastfeeding only provides more reasons why we need more women's spaces in our society. Same-sex spaces, which used to be readily available to our ancestors in many different capacities, would solve this issue greatly. When mothers are spending time together in an area where there are no men, there would be no need to worry about covering up or protecting our bodies from the male gaze. But the more we see same-sex spaces being taken from us, the less likely it is that we will see an increase in places where mothers can breastfeed freely without any concern of modesty.