For what it’s worth, according to the prosecuter’s charge sheet (available at The Smoking Gun) the woman was observed breast feeding the baby by her own daughter and told her “this will be our little secret” which, if true, indicates a certain awareness that what she was doing was wrong. As a general rule of thumb, anytime an adult tells a child they need to keep something secret and it doesn’t involve a birthday or Christmas present, something wrong is occurring.
Okay, keeping to the hypothetical “Is breastfeeding someone else’s kid without permission heinous or not?” The owner of the breast is swapping bodily fluids with a baby! I see this as disgusting as an adult smearing her blood on my child. I don’t care if the blood is “clean” or not…don’t do it! And what if this woman, unknown to herself, did have hepititus? What if she had the flu? What if she was on a painkiller, didn’t think it could affect the baby, but it did?
It’s not a sexual act, but it is an act of intimacy.
Babies cry. Some days they’ll just keep on crying and there’s nothing you can do. If a child is not about to starve, extraordinary measures do not need to be taken.
I would definately take action, especially if the person was in possession of a day care license. A child care professional should know both the risks and the reactions of the average parent.
The issue is not whether it’s unnatural or risky. The issue is that she fed the child something without the mother’s consent, and, moreover, it was something that in this culture is not at all usual.
Absolutely prosecute.
Having read CrankyAsAnOldMan’s response, I’ll add that I’d also have no problem with a friend doing this, but generally, if it was a friend, we’d already have discussed it (actually, I have already discussed it with a few friends). And I’d assume that they’d try mighty hard to get ahold of me to get express permission (so to speak) before going ahead even then.
The problem with ‘someone breastfeeding someone else’s child without permission’ (regardless of the particulars in this case) for me is the ‘food given without permission’ part, first, and the ‘breastmilk from the tap isn’t pasteurized’ part second.
The first is a food issue - I don’t let people give my child food without my consent. Yes, I have a working arrangement with my DCP, who gives my child food every day. But she knows his food issues, and the one time she misjudged, it was because I hadn’t given her that information (avoiding citrus). But citrus is part of most toddler’s diets at some point, whereas breastmilk from a different mom is not - she made a reasonable judgement about letting him have some orange juice, it was just not what I anticipated (he was fine, though). Breastfeeding another child doesn’t sound to me like a reasonable judgement. Food allergies are rampant in my family, and my younger son screams for two days, vomits profusely, and gets bloody diarrhea (not to mention hives) if I eat even a tiny bit of dairy. So someone else nursing him even once ‘because he was hungry’ would mean two days of misery for everyone, especially him. ‘Helpful’ is not always helpful, and a daycare provider should know that. Another mom should know better, too.
Delivering a bio-active compound to my child without consent would bother me the same way giving someone else’s medicine to my child without consent would. Even if it was just some other mom’s expressed milk in a bottle, I would object. It isn’t the delivery system (breast) that bothers me (or not significantly), it isn’t that it is a ‘bodily fluid,’ even, it is the actual content. I might well agree to it if I knew and could consent, but I would be outraged if I didn’t get consent. This is why I have backup emergency numbers in my file - if my child is inconsolable, and you can’t reach me, call them instead. I’d cope if my mom gave her best shot and said go ahead and nurse him, because the requirement to get consent would have been met with good faith, even if it didn’t end up the way I’d have gone, myself.
My take on this is a little different.
I found breastfeeding my children (3 of them–now 26, 17 and 12) to be a very intimate, bonding time. I breastfed them for 12 to 18 months. The closeness, the mutual need for each other, was intense. I would resent someone else breastfeeding my child in much the same way I would resent another person making love to my husband. It’s just not their place. It’s mine. I’d be jealous.
I agree, if this is the case it definitely sounds like the woman knew she shouldn’t be doing that.
And Q.E.D, I work in a hospital, and every week I see patients who are living with - and in some cases dying from - AIDS. There’s no way I’d approve of some stranger breastfeeding my (hypothetical) baby, no more than I’d say it’s fine to not screen blood before transfusions or have unprotected sex with strangers.
Sign me up with those who say she’s an idiot and possibly endangering said child. I’m not a parent, never had kids, but c’mon, that’s just common sense! She doesn’t know the allergies of this child, or whether or not mom is even breastfeeding, or whatever.
Sheesh.
And Rhum Runner, if you see something sexual in the act of breastfeeding, then, well, that says more about YOU than the person doing this.
I don’t see anything sexual aabout breastfeeding. To me, the important thing here is that this person was sticking part of her body in the mouth of a child without permission. It doesn’t have to be sexual to be wrong.
If the woman was lactating, then surely she must have been feeding another child. (Just re-read the OP properly, and discovered that her own child attends) Her own child attends the centre, and if she’s feeding her child, surely she’d know she wasn’t HIV positive, taking any drugs or hosting any other communicable diseases.
If anything, she’d be doing the stranger’s child some good, giving it natural passive immunity to diseases, rather than giving them any actual diseases.
She must have been cautious, as a mother, that her actions only had the child’s best intrests at heart, and it was this that finally calmed the baby down.
Where’s the problem in that?
I can see the problem if the centre had hired some random from the street to temp as a wet nurse, but another mother, who’s clearly going to be a little more health-conscious than a stranger?
She really shouldn’t prosecute.
Cheers, Harry
Hmm, the bit in brackets is meant to say that I re-read the OP, not an instruction for you to do so…
I actually wonder if the day care center is going to go after the woman who allegedly nursed the infant. Seems like it could be argued that the center was liable for not minding the infant closely enough and allowing this to happen. The alleged nurser was NOT an employee of the day care center. She was there to pick up her own child and allegedly picked up the crying infant (not hers) and began nursing the infant while the day care worker was distracted.
With respect to the OP, you bet your sweet bippy I’d be prosecuting some random person who decided to nurse my child. The mind boggles! I don’t know that I’d allow a friend to nurse my child unless I was certain of their blood-borne pathogen status.
This woman would be fired immediately.
She disregarded rules and procedures designed to protect the children becuase she thought that her way was better. She exercised poor judgement.
QED Yes, the baby didn’t mind. So what? Small children also enjoy the sweet taste of lead paint chips. Infants and toddlers will happily eat foods that can cause severe and even fatal anaphylactic reactions.
Hedra Thank you for proving my point. If children have allergies the staff knows and they make sure not to let the child eat any of things they’re allergic too. When dealing with a kid you don’t know never say ‘Well, this couldn’t possibly be bad for them…’ It can.
Guinastasia
**
Exactly why it was so stupid. Always assume a gun is loaded. Always assume a kid with a bottle is allergic to other fluids. Look at it this way-
You go on vacation and leave your cats with a friend. One of the cats is throwing up and seems sick. Back when your friend had a dog, he gave it aspirin when it was sick. Your friend doesn;t have any aspirin. But they do have tylenol. They think ‘aspirin=acetacyllic acid. tylenol=acetiminophen. Close enough.’ They give the sick cat some tylenol. It’s dangerous to give tylenol to dogs. It’s fatal to cats. Your now ex friend was unaware of this and did what they thought best. They assumed that it was safe.
It isn't the breast feeding that upsets me. It's that she fed the child *any* food without checking the child's file. Every center I know has a file of emergency contact informatio, list of people approved to pick up the child, and a list of any allergies or conditions. Whoever made up that bottle knows the sheets. What was in the bottle was(or at least should have been. For the sake of argument, I'll assume the rest of the staff actually knew how to do their jobs) safe to feed the baby. Her breast milk may not be. My mother and sister(I have a marvellous niece), have told me that certain foods, such as onions and garlic, change the flavor of breast milk. I'm assuming, based on that, that allergens could also be transmitted. I may be wrong. But when dealing with childrens' safety always err on the side of extreme caution.
She couldn't find another way to comfort the baby. And if the Smoking Gun is correct, she also thinks kids can be trusted to keep secrets.
I wonder if she has the basic understanding of children necessary to work with them.Guinastasia I somehow managed to completely read your post. Looking at it now, I’m not sure how I managed to do it. Sorry.
That should say misread. I managed to completely misread your post.
I should probably go and lay down now.
Surely she’d know? Why? Plenty of people don’t know they have a virus until they begin to feel ill. It is possible to go through one’s life without ever being tested for HIV, or any of the other myriad communicatable diseases that exist. What if she thought her anti-depressent or her muscle-relaxant or the marijuana she smoked nightly or the Bloody Mary she had at breakfast was harmless to an infant? We are supposed to assume that because she decided to breastfeed, she was healthy? Does the condition of lactation assure mental clarity?
Although the woman did not work at the center at the time of the incident, she later bought the center. This makes her a child-care professional. Which horrifies me.
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.
Rhum Runner’s analogy kind of disturbs me; I prefer to think of it this way: What if the daycare worker spit in the kid’s mouth? I don’t know the exact makeup of each, but whatever is floating around in her saliva is most likely floating around in her breast milk, too - and that’s not even counting the viruses and whatnot. I’d be infuriated if a lady spit in my child’s mouth, and this issue is even worse than that. And that’s not taking into account the intimacy issues that others have raised.
As far as punishment, I think the fault lies just as much with the center as with the woman who did the act. I don’t really see imprisonment, but I see some child endangerment warning flags being raised and some hefty fines for both the woman and the center.
I cant believe the sheer irrational panic that is goin on in this thread. Look here, while blood, semen, spit, and milk share the same category as “body fluid” only one of those is fit for human consumption.
Now i agree that it is unappropriate. It may have been a quick way to soothe the child in its moment of need but to hide the fact, to do it surreptitiously, and to not ask permission first is not within common standards of decency and proper daycare procedure.
Having 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.
Hey… wasnt this Hilary Clintons idea of “it takes a town to raise a child”?
I would prosecute. Mind you, in some circumstances, I would allow another to breastfeed my child. It is not the case that I find this icky or sexual. I am cautious about what I eat, about what medicines I take. I would want to know another was as cautious before she nursed my child.
In this case, what is being done to determine that no viruses were actually transmitted to the child? I would want HIV tests, and they can not show a positive result for months, and all that time I would be wondering if my child was living under a death sentence, other than the one we all face. There is also hepatitis to worry about. That is far more hardy a virus too. I would not trust someone who showed such a lack of judgement to give me an accurate picture of her risk factors or even her diet.
I think it is fair to say that the woman concerned should not be allowed to look after children again. What she did was totally unprofessional. It would to me seem similar to a day care worker giving a child Gripe Water (High alcohol content syrup, used years ago to quiten down upset babies) without parental concent. Though it is very unlikely to cause harm it is not something that should ever be done without concent, and it is not something where consent is implied by the parents putting their child into this individual’s care.
If the only way to ensure this woman will not do such a thing again is to prosecute her, then prosecution seems to me to be necessary.