What contaminates milk is the bacteria from the mouth. Milk is an excellent breeding ground for this, and so once the bottle is sucked on by someone, the contents (formula or breastmilk) have a VERY short shelf life. (The nurse at the hospital told me that once a bottle is started, it must be finished within an hour or so, and leftovers must be discarded.)
It doesn’t help that there are social pressures attached to breastfeeding. It makes people squeamish. Nursing mothers are often forced to nurse in bathrooms, if we can nurse in public places at all. We get looks from strangers who question our “exhibitionism”.
What I intend to do next month when I fly to PA is to wear a nursing top that will allow me to nurse discreetly on the plane, if I have to. Easy, right?
Robyn, if you use the bottles with the open bottoms and the plastic liners you can squeeze some out without contaminating the milk. Not that this mother had the option of picking out what bottle she had at that moment, but…
[hikack – err… off topic]
BTW, I found a really neat site for making nursing clothes. The clothes are very cute, not like the crap I found at Wal*Mart. Go to http://elizabethlee.com/