# Dopermoms- If daycare worker breastfed your baby without permission do you prosecute?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopermoms-if-daycare-worker-breastfed-your-baby-without-permission-do-you-prosecute/179499
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 4, 2003, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopermoms-if-daycare-worker-breastfed-your-baby-without-permission-do-you-prosecute/179499 "2003-06-04T03:08:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@pretend\_my\_name\_is\_witty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pretend_my_name_is_witty)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2003, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopermoms-if-daycare-worker-breastfed-your-baby-without-permission-do-you-prosecute/179499/61 "2003-06-06T22:28:26Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Rhum Runner \*
> \*\*Good god man. Love your reasoning.
> a) mother does A for own child
> b) therefore A is safe and appropriate for all children.
>
> And I suppose that all people who have sex know they don’t have AIDS, else why would they do it? And all people who use needles know they are clean, because people wouldn’t be so stupid as to stick a dirty needle in their arm, right? RIGHT?
>
> And, it is the State’s decision to prosecute, no one else has the power to make that decision. \*\*
OK, maybe I was being a little hasty in my dismissal of this issue. However, I do not think that posters to a message board, who do not know either woman at all can pass judgement on this situation properly.
Maybe the woman was HIV positive, but didn’t know about it. Maybe she was a drug abuser, maybe she was hosting uncountable unknown pathogens.
Yeah…maybe. In my opinion, the most likely thing is that this woman was a caring mother. If she enjoys looking after children enough to work in a daycare centre, then it kinda gives the impression of being a good mother to me.
Any mother who cares for the wellbeing of their child would not breastfeed them if they thought that it could be at all detrimental to the child’s health. She would therefore no breastfeed if ill at all, not take non-prescription drugs, and have a HIV test if there was any suspiscion that she might be so.
In this case, therefore I think that;
a) mother does A for own child
b) therefore A is safe and appropriate for all children, _or at least those in the daycare centre which would surely have been informed of any life-threatening allergies. If the child had any such allergies, and the mother had not informed the daycare centre, then I dont think the mother could take a moral standpoint on “what’s best for her child”_
Cheers, Harry
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### Author:  [@Primaflora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Primaflora)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2003, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopermoms-if-daycare-worker-breastfed-your-baby-without-permission-do-you-prosecute/179499/62 "2003-06-06T22:52:31Z")
In no childcare centre I’ve worked in, in two different countries has it been standard best practice to breastfeed grizzling babies. When I’ve babysat friends’s babies, it’s never occurred to me to whip my breast out and soothe the baby by bf’ing.
That’s the issue really. There are numerous ways to soothe a baby. Bf’ing another person’s baby without consent is not something that we do in this society. Arguing that because a mother chooses to bf her baby, that somehow sanctions a childcare worker bf’ing that baby as well is just ludicrous.
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### Author:  [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2003, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopermoms-if-daycare-worker-breastfed-your-baby-without-permission-do-you-prosecute/179499/63 "2003-06-08T03:45:15Z")
**THE WOMAN WAS NOT A DAY CARE WORKER AT THIS CENTER.** The day care worker is the one who _discovered_ that a mother who had arrived at the center to pick up her own child had _taken it upon herself_ to comfort a crying infant - not her own - by breastfeeding him/her.
We can debate all we want about whether it’s okay for day care centers to provide wet nurse services, but that ISN’T what happened here. Some random mommy just decided to “help” the day care worker by picking up a crying infant and giving them suck. Granted, we don’t know the whole story, but it strikes me as the equivalent of a perfect stranger picking up a child and popping her nipple into the kid’s mouth! As I said in my first post to this thread, it simply boggles the mind.
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### Author:  [@vivian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivian)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2003, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopermoms-if-daycare-worker-breastfed-your-baby-without-permission-do-you-prosecute/179499/64 "2003-06-08T05:52:04Z")
now…this is only my opinion, but I think its sad that a 3 month old child was in daycare in the first place. Its sad that a mother can’t for whatever reasons (financial, social etc) can’t stay home with a 3 month old child and care for it. Its a reflection on our society. I too don’t agree with the woman’s actions, but she was giving the child what her mother couldn’t give.
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### Author:  [@Queen\_Tonya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Tonya)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2003, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopermoms-if-daycare-worker-breastfed-your-baby-without-permission-do-you-prosecute/179499/65 "2003-06-08T06:02:49Z")
I breastfed, and wouldn’t have minded bf’ing the children of friends/family or them feeding mine, with all the appropriate permissions exchanged. The intimacy issue isn’t an issue for me whatsoever, it’s not the inappropriate thing here.
As the story was erroneously reported first, if she’d been employed there I’d seriously consider prosecution of some sort, for all the reasons stated above. Care workers are not to give infants any foods not specified by the parents, period.
The fact that she was a misguided mommy who was just in the right place at the wrong time, I’d still be looking at legal action against the care center because they shouldn’t have allowed anyone else access to my infant. In the time it took for her to cuddle and or nurse my child, potentially she could have taken that time to do something intentionally harmful. You check lisences, references, health code compliance and everything else slightly applicable when you choose a daycare center, a minimum of attention from the admittedly busy workers ought to be a given.
Public decency and outrage and all that sounds like an incredibly dumb charge, IMO. Child endangernment, given the possibilities of allergen and virii transmissions, could fit the bill and remove the drama.
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### Author:  [@corvidae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corvidae)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2003, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopermoms-if-daycare-worker-breastfed-your-baby-without-permission-do-you-prosecute/179499/66 "2003-06-08T11:07:17Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by vivian \*
> \*\*now…this is only my opinion, but I think its sad that a 3 month old child was in daycare in the first place. Its sad that a mother can’t for whatever reasons (financial, social etc) can’t stay home with a 3 month old child and care for it. Its a reflection on our society. I too don’t agree with the woman’s actions, but she was giving the child what her mother couldn’t give. \*\*
While I do agree that it’s sad there may be no choice than to put a three month old infant in daycare, it’s not to say that the mother wasn’t still nursing this baby. When my kid started daycare, I sent expressed milk with her every day, and nursed her before and after.
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### Author:  [@pretend\_my\_name\_is\_witty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pretend_my_name_is_witty)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2003, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopermoms-if-daycare-worker-breastfed-your-baby-without-permission-do-you-prosecute/179499/67 "2003-06-08T11:51:48Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Amanita \*
> \*\ ***THE WOMAN WAS NOT A DAY CARE WORKER AT THIS CENTER.** The day care worker is the one who _discovered_ that a mother who had arrived at the center to pick up her own child had _taken it upon herself_ to comfort a crying infant - not her own - by breastfeeding him/her.
>
> We can debate all we want about whether it’s okay for day care centers to provide wet nurse services, but that ISN’T what happened here.\*\*
Yeah, ok, I dont know where I got my view of her working at the centre from.
Now I dont know what opinion to hold on this thing. This is mainly because my opinion is that none of us know either of the women, and no matter how much we can debate the whole charade, we can’t formulate a fair opinion on what should/shouldn’t be done. Also, my opinion is that I’m just a rather stupid 16 year old student whom I’m sure couldn’t formulate said opinion even if I knew either of the women (I’d still argue though, but that’s always fun!).
I’m sorry if my previous opinions on what should have been done offended anyone, but I’d been imagining facts about the whole story that never really happened, tainting my take on the affair.
Cheers, Harry
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### Author:  [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2003, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopermoms-if-daycare-worker-breastfed-your-baby-without-permission-do-you-prosecute/179499/68 "2003-06-08T13:12:16Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by X~Slayer(ALE) \*
> \*\*IHaving said that, criminally prosecuting the lady for a morals charge is excessive. There was no proven sexual abuse in either intent or fact. The baby got some food from an unpermitted source. Thats hardly worth sending a woman to jail for. I would get mad and sue in civil court but in the end if the babys fine, i wouldnt lose too much sleep over it. \*\*
So why would you sue in civil court? See a chance to make some money off someone else even though you don’t think that what she did was terribly wrong (wrong, but not terribly wrong)?
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### Author:  [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2003, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopermoms-if-daycare-worker-breastfed-your-baby-without-permission-do-you-prosecute/179499/69 "2003-06-08T13:20:18Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Rhum Runner \*
> \*\*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. \*\*
There is a big difference between dicks and tits. Dicks ain’t for kids, tits are. Tits are made for that. I don’t think what she did is right, but it DID shut the kid up. I wouldn’t have complained if I was introduced to a couple of new titties in my prime.
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### Author:  [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopermoms-if-daycare-worker-breastfed-your-baby-without-permission-do-you-prosecute/179499/70 "2003-06-08T16:09:44Z")
Was the child harmed? No.
Did the child actually benefit? Maybe. Probably.
Did the child’s mother feel a sort of “invasion of privacy?” Probably.
Is it “litigation-worthy?” Only if the woman refuses to submit to a battery of screening tests at her own cost.
Geez.
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