I breastfed both of my children until they were 12-13 months.
Due to the fact that I live in a different country to my own family, this meant a lot of travel with my babies – and a lot of feeding them during these travels.
I have breastfed on more flights than I can count, and never, not once, have I been asked to cover up or felt like I was bothering anyone while feeding my babies.
However, last week, California mom Shelby Angel experienced just this onboard a flight with Dutch airline KLM.
In a Facebook post that has gone viral Shelby explained:
“Before we even took off, I was approached by a flight attendant carrying a blanket. She told me (and I quote) “if you want to continue doing the breastfeeding, you need to cover yourself.” I told her no, my daughter doesn’t like to be covered up. That would upset her almost as much as not breastfeeding her at all. She then warned me that if anyone complained, it would be my issue to deal with (no one complained. On any of the flights I took with my daughter. Actually, no one has ever complained to me about breastfeeding in public. Except this flight attendant).”
The internet being the internet, the conversation spread to Twitter, where another woman, Heather Yemm, asked KLM to explain its breastfeeding policy.
The airline responded to the tweet, writing: “To ensure that all our passengers of all backgrounds feel comfortable on board, we may request a mother to cover herself while breastfeeding, should other passengers be offended by this.”
This, unsurprisingly, went down like a lead balloon with Twitter users, who even started asking other airlines about their breastfeeding policies.
Here is what British Airlines had to say:
And Delta:
It struck me as shocking in this day and age that someone should have a problem with a mum feeding her baby, and I feel happy that all my experiences with breastfeeding in public were so positve, but this incident just goes to show that there is still clearly work to be done when it comes to normalizing breastfeeding and making sure breastfeeding mums feel cared for and supported.
Have YOU ever had a negative experience breastfeeding in public? Let us know in the comments or tweet us at @herfamilydotie
