For once, the "nanny" state gets it right!
My wife often gets funny looks when she nurses our 19 month old son, and I've been waiting for the day when someone asks her to "take it elsewhere". I'm not sure what the legal provisions of this law are yet, other than probably the right to file a civil lawsuit.
My wife often gets funny looks when she nurses our 19 month old son, and I've been waiting for the day when someone asks her to "take it elsewhere". I'm not sure what the legal provisions of this law are yet, other than probably the right to file a civil lawsuit.
Rebuked for her attempt to nurse her child at a health club, a La Grange woman launches a drive that leads to a new state law
By Colleen Mastony, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporters Bonnie Miller Rubin and Christi Parsons contributed to this report
August 15, 2004
Kasey Madden was trying to lose a few pounds after having a baby when she headed to her local fitness center last fall. But when the gym's manager rebuked her for nursing her baby in the day-care area, the La Grange mother launched a campaign that likely will strengthen a woman's right to breast-feed in public.
A bill prompted by Madden's experience that is expected to be signed Monday by Gov. Rod Blagojevich will add Illinois to a list of two dozen states that allow women to nurse anywhere. The new law will give women the right to go to court against any business or agency that tries to stop them from nursing.
The bill follows a wave of laws passed across the country in the last 10 years and comes as the rates of breast-feeding have reached the highest levels in 50 years. A study in 2002 found that 70 percent of newborns are breast-fed in the hospital, the highest recorded rate.
But as more women dump formula in favor of breast milk, some people still try to nudge them into the bathroom or another out-of-the-way place.
Madden, 39, is one of many who have turned their personal experience into political action.
"I was so angry," she said, recalling her run-in with the health club manager. "I thought, `My baby needs to eat. It's this tiny little redhead, and she wants her mommy.' It was that simple for me."
Though Illinois had passed laws in the 1990s that prevented nursing women from being arrested for indecency and required employers to provide private space for nursing mothers, no laws gave women the right to nurse in public.
Health club disagreement
Madden stepped into this legislative loophole last fall when she went to Life Time Fitness in Burr Ridge with her husband and two children, a 2-year-old and 5-month-old. Madden dropped both children at the staffed day-care area and headed for the treadmill. She was a few minutes into her workout when she heard her name on the intercom. Her 5-month-old, Sadie, had become fussy and hungry. Madden took the child and sat down on the floor to nurse.
A moment later, she says, a manager asked her to leave the day-care area, noting that some might find breast-feeding offensive. He directed Madden to one of two rooms. One was furnished with a bench. The other didn't allow toddlers, so Madden couldn't bring her 2-year old.
Dumbfounded and furious, Madden exchanged words with the manager. Then she and her husband carried their two children out of the club. Sadie, oblivious to the fight, had fallen asleep.
At home, Madden--who usually spent her days ferrying children and arranging play dates--logged onto the Internet to research the law and launched her campaign. She dashed off letters to the American Civil Liberties Union, Blagojevich, his wife, Patti, and several state legislators.
She found an ally in state Sen. Don Harmon (D-Oak Park), whose wife was pregnant with the couple's third child.
"It struck me as obtuse that a mother couldn't nurse her baby in a child-care area at a health club," Harmon said. "I have not met a nursing mother who is anything but modest. They're not trying to inflame people's attitudes. It's a natural and loving connection between a mom and a baby."
Laws regarding breast-feeding are relatively new. Florida led the nation in 1993 by enacting the first comprehensive legislation that gave women the right to nurse anywhere. Since then, New York has adopted language that defines breast-feeding in public as a civil right, and a 2001 Louisiana law calls any attempt to prohibit a mother from breast-feeding in public a form of discrimination.
Advocates say the laws have been slow to change in part because society can't seem to reconcile the idea that breasts--as objects of fascination and sexual desire--also are baby-feeding mechanisms.
Group champions cause
At La Leche League, a Schaumburg-based group that promotes breast-feeding, workers say they field one call a week from women who have been asked to leave a public area because they were breast-feeding.
"It happens a lot," said Kenneth Friedman, a lawyer who began working on the issue after the death of his wife, Elizabeth Baldwin, a breast-feeding advocate. "I think there are a lot of women out there where someone says something and they just stop breast-feeding. You never hear about it."
Monica Balc ,a South Side artist, was visiting the Field Museum last year when her 8-month-old daughter became hungry. Balc started breast-feeding--until a volunteer told her that she was "being obscene" and asked that she go to a restroom.
"I said: `Do you eat in a restroom?'" Balc said. "To get such a reaction to something so natural was shocking to me."
Indiana State Rep. David Orentlicher sponsored a bill last year to decriminalize breast-feeding after he heard from constituents who were harassed for discreetly nursing in public places.
At the Indianapolis Museum of Art, one mother was asked to leave because workers there said her actions violated the prohibition against bringing food and drink into the galleries.
But changes in laws and attitudes have occurred, sometimes one woman at a time. This month, a group of 100 women and family members staged a `nurse-in' where they breast-fed their babies en masse at a Maryland Starbucks whose employee had asked a nursing mother to leave or go into the restroom.
After letters and calls from Madden, officials at Life Time Fitness changed their policy. Though they say the incident was a misunderstanding, they have since told managers and workers that women should be allowed to nurse anywhere in the club.
"A woman has this happen to her, and she becomes a spark plug," Friedman said. "She writes all these letters and gets people to listen, and a change is made. That spark plug can happen anywhere."
A healthier choice
Studies show that breast-feeding reduces the risk in infants of diarrhea, influenza, constipation, ear infections, meningitis, sudden infant death syndrome, allergies and diabetes. It also has been linked to higher IQs. Nursing mothers return to pre-pregnancy weights faster and have lower risks of ovarian and breast cancer than those who don't nurse.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that mothers breast-feed exclusively for six months and continue until their child is at least a year old. But most women don't breast-feed as much as doctors recommend.
Only 30 percent of U.S. infants are breast-fed at 6 months, and fewer than 20 percent are still receiving breast milk when they reach their first birthday, according to an annual study by formula-maker Abbott Laboratories, which has tracked breast-feeding trends since 1954.
"Our society has made women who breast-feed feel uncomfortable," said Melissa Vance, a lawyer who works on legislative issues with La Leche League. "A woman feeding her child is made to feel as if she is doing something bad."
Advocates hope that new laws will help raise rates of breast-feeding.
"There are so many benefits to breast-feeding," said Patti Blagojevich, who is breast-feeding her second child. "If we can make people less hesitant to bring their children in public and less worried about being discriminated against, then that's a good thing."
Blagojevich plans to announce the law at the state fair in Springfield, where she will attend a celebratory gathering at a mobile nursery, set up for women to nurse in air-conditioning and quiet.
Kasey Madden will be at home taking care of her three children when the governor signs the bill Monday.
Her younger child has stopped breast-feeding, so Madden won't benefit from the law. But, she says, "at least my daughters will enjoy this legislation some day."
Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune
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