My First Nursing in Public Situation

I’m a pretty confident person.  I don’t get embarrassed very easily, especially after giving birth in a US hospital with about ten strangers in the room in addition to my husband, mother and midwife.  However, having a baby is life changing and all of  a sudden I had this whole other person completely dependent on me for his safety and nourishment.

My most memorable nursing in public experience happened in a very public place when William was very little.  It was one of the first times I had to feed in public and I was on my own outside of the house for the first time.  My brother was visiting during my 12 weeks maternity leave in the States and I was picking him up from the Baltimore Washington International Airport.  I’d been there a million times, knew the best place to park and where I could sit and exactly how long ot would take him to get through customs.  I still managed to get there early as in the past I usually had to rush from work but  this time I’d had all day to get ready (it takes that long).  William was in his sling but I’d had a horrible episiotomy and I couldn’t stand for too long.  I wanted my Brother to find me easily so I sat down in front of the automatic doors that poured arrivals out into the terminal so that we could welcome him as soon as he came through the door.

The other people in the terminal waiting for their relatives to arrive loved seeing baby William and he was a very happy and cute baby.  That is until he got hungry.  I’ve never had a baby that does all those feeding cues that are talked about.  I’ve seen them on other babies, taught parents how to recognise them even.  William only had one cue, crying.  As soon as he started to cry everyone around me had an opinion, and everyone told me that my baby was hungry and that I should feed him.

So, I was alone, a little vulnerable as a first time mum, just given birth with a painful tear (I felt like everything would fall out every time I stood up) and I had never fed in public on my own before.  We also had huge latch issues and William hadn’t gone near my breast for the first few weeks of life after being suctioned at birth so we were still learning and it took some effort to get a good latch.

I hadn’t practised, I hadn’t done anything that I had been advising for years to do in such a circumstance.  I wasn’t prepared, I had barely managed to shower that morning in preparation of our trip out.  I panicked, I went bright red in the face and tried to calm William which didn’t work.  I did have a blanket with me so I thought that I could use it as a cover, so I tucked it under my bra strap.  William hated it.  I spent 5 minutes wrestling with him before abandoning the blanket and yes, I showed a bit more skin than I wanted to but we had a successful feed and everyone was happy that the crying had stopped.  It was at that moment that the doors opened and 200 people arrived in the terminal and the first thing they saw was my boob.

I overcame my fear of breastfeeding in public pretty quickly, we didn’t look back and we fed everywhere – on the plane, at the zoo, at my American citizen swearing in ceremony, at the supermarket, in the mall, in front of my family, at the beach, in the pool!  Practise makes perfect.

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