Mothers who breastfeed in public! Do you find it normal or odd?

Mable Twegumye Zake - @MableTwegumye

Mable Twegumye Zake

It dawns you that the world you live in has changed when things that you thought were part of nature's set up start to be debated as illegal, others are cast out as primitive and some are deemed embarrassing and indecent despite the cost of who will be affected.

This changing world has also placed criticisms on downsides on the act of breastfeeding children breeding changing faces to the kinds of mothers we have today.

Now there are some mothers who will hold out on breastfeeding their child in public even if it cries citing embarrassment or fear to be reprimanded by those who claim that seeing a woman breastfeeding her baby in public is indecent.

One of the hardest deeds in human nature is placing the needs of others before our own and it could be one of the reasons why we see those who do it as extraordinary.

This is one of the many extraordinary things about mothers; being able to place their child's needs before there own. It matters more to the child whose needs are as basic as breastfeeding holding other factors constant.

A child's first cry when its born, be it on the side of the road, it will wait for no medical attendant to tell a mother to put the child to breast or find a private area to breastfeed if a child's need is to feed and the breast is in proximity!!

If a baby's call is to feed, I personally debate no rules on where or when a mother should breastfeed her child for a hungry child should never wait for breastmilk at the cost of the selfish who no not in the urgency for a child to breastfeed.

Critics who protest the act of mothers breastfeeding in public calling it indecent exposure of a woman's breasts, are the ones who can never put the needs of others before theirs and in this case the needs of a baby, which is despicable.

The price that has been placed on breastfeeding mothers who fear to nurse their children in public because of the scary glaring eyes is now bottle feeding.

No alternative feeding will ever replace breastfeeding especially if the mother is healthy to do it with no challenges. Not even when the milk in the bottle has been directly expressed from a mother's breast because rather the baby to bond with its mother than the bottle so no moments should be stolen away for careless reasoning as indecent exposure of breasts while breastfeeding in public.

This is not an intentional act where breastfeeding mothers parade themselves in public to pull out their breasts into their babies mouths for a contest or for their breasts to be seen by the glaring eyes but occasional incidents which must be understood and accepted.

Every mother has a right to breastfeed her child at any moment when the need for the baby arises and shouldn’t feel uncomfortable because of the I’ll and baseless thoughts of those around her; in that moment that child needs matter most.

Never should a baby be left to cry her lungs out yet the vessel that carries her food is within the reach of a bra.

I accept that the world we live in has changed but for the changes in flexible clothes for breastfeeding mothers to able to wear suitable clothing to prepare themselves for when the breastfeed call rings.

The minds of clothing designers all over the world changed to favour breastfeeding mothers with outfits for the babies to easily access a mother's breast whether in public or not.

With the existing variety of clothes; special feeding bras, shirts that button from up, wrap-style front dresses among others, breastfeeding mothers can embrace all this and proudly answer to the baby's breastfeeding call in public.

Fellow mothers, carrying a small blanket, shawl or small bedsheet to cover over your baby as you breastfeed in public also works and will calm your nerves if you’re worried about who could be staring.

Other than that, if moments like that between a mother and child are stolen away and replaced by a feeding bottle, you are as well stealing away a child’s breastfeeding needs that need no science to explain to you their importance.

Dalton Kaweesa - @DaltonKaweesa

Dalton Kaweesa

Before I even complete my first sentence debunking the idea of breastfeeding in public, my hands are already aware of the outrage it is enlisting from women, later on the wannabe men supporters. Please, please and please relax! Ugandans are funny instead of demanding for public breastfeeding spaces , they are busy trying to sanitise a barbaric act of women unleashing their chest arsenal with reckless abandon – but I will return to that later.

Proponents of breastfeed in public are right about one thing, that it is food for the baby which needs to be considered. They, like many feminists who miss the foundation value of feminism movement, ignore all important ingredients like health and the cultural values that are an embodiment of many a society.

Think about it this way, this all sweaty woman in a public transport – in a taxi, suddenly has her hands dig deep into her bra and retrieves the not so good to look at breast and in a flash, the tit is already by the mouth of this innocent being. Come on, what sanitary safety has she observed? Argument is lost in thinking that everything is a right. Would you as an adult where there are numerous options allow to be served on an already used plate- No! The infatuation of rights should stop, people should refocus energy on seeing how we made things rights. Last week I asked, are human rights universal, or are they absolute – one needs to appreciate that some rights are guided and it is delusional to think otherwise.

I have had the experience of sitting in a taxi, and witnessed a lady’s popped up in the name of breastfeeding, the discomfort is written allover. Never claim to be an expert in this area since I am no lady , but the little read up I have made in my adult journey is that breastfeeding is good in a calm environment for the proper growth and development of children.

I am not so sure that this is achieved even when one does it in a hotel alley. It is just poignant for one to think that breastfeeding be limited to ‘It is food for the baby ‘ argument which lack both in form and substance.

If rights are stripped down to its bare bones , giving away everything irrespective of the consequences , then we need to be cognisants of the tidings of religion , culture and national decorum.

I would request that we take a break from this long nauseating tale of rights and interrogate what has kept us as a society. And this , draws to mind the moral question. Recently over lunch , I heard a story of humiliation that happened to breastfeeding mother. This lady was in one of those not so high level meeting with her child. As the deliberations took shape, she rolled out to breastfeed her child. Men gawked as little children giggled. They whispered something to do with nakedness of the breastfeeding mother. Body is sacred, and no matter the argument advanced by apologists, it is not supposed to be seen in public space.

The crisis of public morality will eat us up all if we start sanitising things that hitherto were regulated.

Over the years, I have learnt that the downfall of every civilization comes not from moral complacency but moral corruption of common and by extension little schooled men in high place, many of whom I see trying to drum it that the world has moved so much such that women can unleash their chest arsenal before all and sundry.

Shouting a hoarse that women are doing publicly breastfeeding in defence of the right of babies , is just a mask being used to conceal immoral beings who are veering off the societal expectations. Make no mistake that these arguments are made in reference to male adults who appreciate the breasts as a sexual part , right as it may , it doesn’t carry away the principle of privacy.

We have a moral obligation to fight alien cultures through policing public space.