Possibly not the wisest move by the day care worker in this day and age, but should the well meaning woman really be prosecuted for trying to help a little baby stop crying?
The last line is the important one; “Viruses can be transmitted through breast milk.” Ms Denney was needlessly exposing a child under her care to a significant health risk.
Geez, not only would I not prosecute, I would be thanking the child-care worker for her thoughtfulness in figuring out a way to placate my baby. I really don’t see what the problem is here, especially the ‘outraging public decency and public morals’ bit. Fer gawdsakes, the little baby wanted a titty, and it was provided. What the hell is wrong with that?
How on earth could the parents be upset? I’m sure there are many more viruses floating around in the airspace of your average day-care centre than might be contracted via suckling and snuggling into the breasts of one of the workers.
I really do despair for this world sometimes. 
What if the daycare worker had been a man who stuck his dick in the kids mouth to shut it up, would that be different? “Here kid, suck on this.”
I would press charges. You don’t go around sticking your body in other peoples children’s mouths to be sucked on. I really do despair for this world sometimes too.
I…
Well the…
I’m just…almost speechless. I don’t think I’d prosecute, but come on. This kind of thing (wet nurses) was not uncommon 100(?) years ago, but you just don’t do that these days.
I wouldn’t have breastfed my best friend’s kids, why would I breastfeed a total stranger’s baby? It’s such a personal thing for women these days.
Just mind boggling that she would even think about doing that.
~J
Umm…
Kambucta, does the fact that the woman did not have the permission of the parents to do so have any bearing on your answer?
You can approve anyone you want to to breastfeed your kid, but I’d like some say so in who does it for the Moto twins.
There are so many things wrong with this action. Was it appropriate for the child to be breast feeding in general? Usually yes, true, but the Moto twins had nutritional needs not totally met by breast milk. Was this possibility taken into account? Betcha no.
Outraging public morals? I don’t know about that. If it was my kid, though, I’d consider it a physical assault and proceed accordingly.
I’d prosecute. I’m a breastfeeding nazi, I bf my kids for 3.5 years and 4.5 years, I’m all about breastfeeding but if a daycare worker breastfeed my child without permission and then DIDN’T tell me and I found out through small town gossip, you betcha she’s gonna hear from my lawyer.
It’s a betrayal of trust – when I hand my kids over to daycare workers, I don’t expect them to do something which is so far outside the societal norms. If my baby is crying inconsolably then I expect a phone call from the caregiver so we can decide what to do about it not that she appoints herself wetnurse. If I were to use donated breastmilk or a wetnurse, that person would go through health checks for hepatitis and HIV and other issues. I consider it to be a betrayal of trust for someone to just breastfeed without discussing it and without having the necessary health checks.
I’m not concerned about direct comparisons to sexual abuse or affronts to public morality – I’d be more concerned about a daycare worker without the skills to settle a crying baby without using her breasts.
I would be extremely upset that my child was fed something that I did not give her permission to have.
I would expect that my very young baby only be given what I had instructed the center to give. If the child was older, say over a year, I wouldn’t expect to have to individually approve every thing that she might be fed, but I would expect that anything that she would be given would be something ordinary and acceptable to most people. Like an oatmeal cookie or something. I would be rather annoyed if the day care center fed her lutefisk or monkey brains without my permission.
In this case, I say yes, the woman should be prosecuted. She not only fed the baby something that hadn’t been approved by the mother, but she fed it bodily fluids, which could contain any number of things–viruses is one, but I’d also be concerned about any drugs (prescription or otherwise) that she might be taking.
I am a huge advocate of breastfeeding, and it’s possible that I would allow my child to be nursed by another person–but only with my knowledge and permission.
Given what can be transmitted through breastmilk—viruses, drugs, etc., …Yes.
What the hell do you think cow’s milk is? It isn’t just made by magic, you know. Maybe you people think breastfeeding someone else’s child is unusual or even weird, but the fact is, it’s perfectly natural and occurs ion other species all the time (and possibly our prehistoric ancestors, as well.) In short, lighten up on this woman. She certainly doesn’t deserve jail for this.
QED, but breast milk wouldn’t have been treated like cows milk or formula.
I wouldn’t approve of my child sucking on a cows teat either you know, but I wouldn’t mind if it came out of the treated bottle.
Gee Q.E.D. do you realise that cow’s milk is NOT what a daycare centre should be feeding a 3 month old baby in any case? Under the age of a year, formula’s the safest option after breastmilk. And yes, some formulas are derived from cows milk but not all of them are.
She may not deserve jail but she deserves some form of punishment/rehabilitation for this, If you’re comfortable with some random person who may or may not be on drugs, prescription or otherwise, who may or may not have diseases bf’ing your kid, I think you’re odd.
Wetnursing where it has been clearly agreed upon by both parties and where the wetnurse has passed a healthcheck doesn’t bother me at all. Having it happen without my explicit permission and with the caregiver withholding the info that she had even done would scare me. I’d pursue prosecution in the hope it would mean she would either get more effective training in her career or that she never worked with babies again.
Another lactonazi checking in who’s not against nursing other people’s children when consent is given. Regardless of her good intentions, what the careworker did was unneeded and dangerous. She couldn’t console an infant in her care so her solution was nurse it? I don’t think so. What if the infant had a milk allergy thast required formula feeding? What if the infant was actually crying because s/he was sick and in need of medical care? What if the careworker had hepatitis or HIV and didn’t know it? Bad, bad idea to nurse other people’s kid’s without their knowledge.
Q.E.D., I don’t think that the breastfeeding of the infant is the foremost issue here, but the possibility of transmission of viruses and other pathogens is.
The article in the OP doesn’t state if the offending daycare worker is HIV negative, or has been tested for other viruses/pathogens which can be transmitted through breastmilk.
I breastfed all three of my daughters; but that was an act of intimacy between me and my babies. I feel that the daycare worker was out of line. At the very least, the act was outside of societal norms.
Yes, but that’s always a possibility. Your kid can get sick from just breathing. The fact of the matter is, life is hazardous; it’s been that way since the dawn of time, but legislating it isn’t going to make it any safer. The risk is merely being transferred from the individual level to the species level. Ok, so you’ve successfully protected kid-A from virus-X. Kid-A goes on to have kids of his own, who may or may not be susceptible to virus-X. If kid-A and his kids, kid-B and kid-C, are susceptible to virus-X, then eventually, because of modern medicine and legal issues keeping the kids from being exposed to virus-X, much of the population has at least some susceptibilty to the virus, and if an epidemic occurs, the human population crashes.
We’re exposing ourselves to the same possibility with our overuse of antibiotics.
Well women randomly breastfeeding other people’s babies without permission doesn’t exactly equate with the overuse of antibiotics by any stretch of the imagination.
The daycare worker had choices. She could continue to try and bottlefeed the baby, she could try to swing the baby or do any of the myriad baby comforting things which professional daycare workers do or she could ring the parents to come and get the baby. Deciding to expose someone else’s baby to pathogens without permission actually was a very dumb choice.
What in the world has the nonsensical tirade to do with the op? Dear god, you must really need a cigarette.
It’s not a tirade. It’s called biology. It’s the way life has existed on this planet for 99.9+% of the time it’s been around. Yes, I realize the law has nothing to do with nature, but my point is too much legislation begins to approach silliness.
To say that you’re fine with it, that would be all well and good if this had been your kid, but it obviously wasn’t fine with the mother of the actual kid in the case. You don’t do something like this to someone else’s kid without permission.