Breast feeding in the swimming pool

In My Humble Opinion
101

I’m surprised at the people who don’t think babies or toddlers should be in a pool. In the UK at least, parent and baby/toddler classes are a common sight. At my local, 25x10m, pool, there isn’t even a separate area, they just rope off the shallow end for the class whilst everyone else gets the rest of the pool.

During the classes kiddie music is played and the babies are mostly held by their mothers or held onto various floating toys. The more adventurous ones are encouraged to try a little free swimming. It’s a good way to get them used to water.

They all wear swim nappies. In all the time I’ve been going, over ten years, only once has there been a pool clearing incident, when a baby was sick. We all got vouchers for a free session. Incidentally my pool offers adult only sessions if you don’t want to share with kids. Kids can be a splashy pain but the toddler classes have never bothered me.

102

I see what you did there.

103

I’ve not been to the pool in question, but it’s pretty standard for kiddie pools in the UK to be quite a bit warmer than the main pool, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they were filtering it seperately, rather than mixing, filtering, seperating then reheating to different temperatures.

Either way, you take a baby to the pool, it doesn’t matter if you’re feeding it there or not, it’s going to get some of the water in its mouth, just from the splashing around and yelling.

104

Good lord, keep that in private, certainly don’t do it in the pool. Disgusting.

105

I’ll chime in with those saying it depends on what the pool rules are for adults. If I don’t get to stand in the pool and drink some milk, why should that kid get to?

106

Stupid post.

107

I have no problem at all with public breastfeeding. I did my best to keep covered when feeding Celtling, but I have to admit there were a few slip-ups, and I wasn’t about to let my baby go hungry.

That said, I would never have fed a baby that young after dipping my breast in pool water. That water is filthy. I still make her take a bath when we get home from the pool. If the Mother had gotten out, cleaned it off with a wipe and then fed the baby in her chair I’d have no problem at all.

Its not that hard to drape a towel or something over yourself though, and it’s no excuse for flamboyant self-exposure.

108

So where exactly was her paragon of a husband while all this was going on? If she’s standing waist-deep in water, that’s pretty deep water for a 17-month old to be in, especially if the mommy who is supposedly watching the girl has her hands full with another baby. And 22-year-old daddies with two kids under 18 months may tend to be a little less mature than we would hope. So was he lounging about on a towel working on his tan, or over in the deep end doing laps or hanging out over at the snack bar, chatting up the girl working the ICEE machine? Or was he right there beside her in the water, playing with his little one and mom didn’t want to miss out on the fun so she just stayed in the water when the baby got fussy and started rooting around, figuring no one would notice what was going on and besides all the lounge chairs were taken up by the inattentive mommies who don’t CARE if their little ones drown?

109

I’m going to go with the obvious answer and say that he was at work.

110

I’m late to the party, but this whole breastfeeding thing just makes no sense to me.

It’s how babies are supposed to get food, who the hell turned it into something you can’t just do anywhere at any time?

I seriously do not understand how someone could turn the natural process of feeding babies into something controversial.
Note: the cleanliness of the pool water is a factor of course, my comments really relate to feeding a baby in public, which should be a non-issue.

111

I have to put the kids to bed, but quickly, I find the whole “You can’t let her milk contaminate the pool!” argument to be very stupid. First of all, breast milk is not a particularly hazardous bodily fluid.

Second, anyone worried about breast milk leaking into the pool should be pressing moms to breastfeed *more *at the pool, not less. Just think of all those lactating breasts that might be leaking while moms are swimming because they put off nursing! If a mom has a let-down while swimming, a LOT more milk is getting mixed in than when a nipple is in a baby’s mouth! Or is the answer just to ban lactating women from public pools altogether? (That still won’t solve the issue raised above - that the water your lips are touching has been touching everyone’s butthole though, which seems to be a lot nastier a contaminant.)

Finally, for anyone expressing deep concern that the baby might be exposed to nastiness from the water - sorry, don’t buy it. Do they clutch their pearls whenever they see an infant swimming? I doubt it, and if they don’t, bringing this up is just grasping for a rationalization of an “Ew, breastfeeding!” gut reaction.

112

Well, it involves boobs, and boobs are invented by the Devil.

113

He was in the pool. It’s in the OP.

That said, I’m 100% fine with a mom breastfeeding in the pool, but I’d also be 100% fine with a pool telling her that while breastfeeding one baby she wasn’t adequately supervising the other and not allowing it if there wasn’t another adult. But there was.

114

This already assumes that you don’t want her breastfeeding in the pool, and then lets you come up with a post-hoc reason not to have her do it.

The point is to not do unhygienic things in the pool. If breastfeeding is hygienic enough to be safe and fun for everyone, then have at it.

115

Ever see how much splashing goes on in the kiddy pool?

Actually, she does NOT have a right to do so in a privately owned pool – they have every right to ask her not to. Seriously, sit on the side of the pool in a deck chair. You’d probably be less distracted – having to watch out not to be splashed and bumped into by other swimmers. Dad’s there, he can play with the other kid.

116

It wasn’t a privately owned pool.

(And in many places in the US, she would have a right to do so in a public or a private pool, as breastfeeding is protected anywhere a mother and infant are otherwise allowed to be. But this was in Manchester, and I don’t know the law there.)

117

In other words, you DON’T believe you should have to account for other people’s feelings. Doing so necessarily requires suspending judgement of them. Otherwise, what you are doing is catering to your own feelings about what other people area allowed to care about.

And, yes, if you know an Orthadox Jew who is offended by menstruating women being out in public, you should not go out of your way to let him know that you are menstruating. Just like, if you are out in public and you need to breastfeed, you should try to go to an out of the way place. Doing little things to avoid offending people, even people you disagree with, is just basic decency.

The big thing about breastfeeding in public is that it has almost no external importance whatsoever. Despite claims to the contrary, it has nothing to do with misogyny, just that some people think it is indecent. It is an isolated issue that gets a lot of people fired up for no good reason. You can’t even talk to them about it in a rational manner. People treat it like rape.

And that is what bugs me. I wouldn’t care otherwise. But the biggest proponents just blow it so out of proportion that I can’t help but not be on their side. Being asked to cover up a bit or move to a private space is not some horrible indecency. At most it’s a pointless minor inconvenience.

Should women be able to breastfeed without it being indecent exposure? Sure. Should they be able to do it anywhere without anyone thinking them uncouth? Hardly.

118

Does not compute.

119

Oh, okay.

Hey, while we’re on the subject, your posts on this board really annoy me. Just, you know, the way you type. I find it upsetting. So, could you please stop posting in the forums I read? Just stick to the Game Room from now on. If you don’t, you’re the rude one.

Thanks!!

120

When I was first reading the comments here I misread and thought that she must have been breastfeeding the 17 month old. While I think that a mother can breastfeed for as long as her and the child want, feeding a toddler in public is uncommon enough for people to cause a fuss. But she was feeding an infant. Seriously folks, this is not a big deal.

At four months my kids would have not tolerated a cover, no way. I tried to be discrete as possible, and wasn’t waiving my boobs around, and that’s about as much as we can ask from a woman.

Let’s see, when my youngest was 4 months I was trying to loose the baby weight and my activity of choice was swimming laps. I guarantee that at some point during that time breast milk got into the pool. I was a big producer, and if my kid didn’t eat as much that day, I leaked. Not a big deal.

Personally if it were me, I would have sat on the edge of the pool, or if I thought the oldest wouldn’t cause a fuss, I might go to the change room (depending on the change room, some are gross, or cramped, or don’t have a place to sit). If I saw a woman breastfeeding in the pool, I would probably just be impressed at her skill.

What I would never do, is breastfeed in a bathroom, and would give anyone who even suggested that an earful.

If you are offended by the sight of breastfeeding, you need to sort that out yourself. It’s not the mothers responsibility to cater to your hang-ups. She is feeding her baby in the healthiest way possible. This is normal, we have been doing it for as long as the human race has existed, and we will continue to do it. It has absolutely nothing to do with sex. Nothing. Yes, boobs are used in sex, but not when there is a baby attached, see the difference. It’s really simple boob + baby does not equal sex.