By now we know that breastfed babies are healthier and happier than bottle-fed. They are more resistant to infections and stronger against colds and flu. So why did Delta Airlines tell a breastfeeding mother she had to cover up or bottle feed her baby?
Lindsay Jaynes had to make a six-hour flight with her baby who needs to feed every two hours. He won't take a bottle or feed while under a cover up. In response to Jaynes' request to breastfeed uncovered during her flight, a Delta representative said she would have to cover up or bottle feed.
Policies that treat a woman's body as something obscene or shameful are medieval and hateful. Babies have to be trained to bottle feed, sometimes with great difficulty because it's more natural to feed from mom's breast. So Delta's advice to just bottle feed a baby is preposterous.
Delta is not the only company to discriminate against breastfeeders. But they have an opportunity to lead the way with a more compassionate policy. Tell Delta to allow unfettered breastfeeding on all its flights!
Dear Delta Airlines:
We the undersigned understand that an airplane is a crowded space and that the passengers have to accommodate one another's needs. But telling a breast feeding mother to cover up or bottle feed her baby is flagrantly unfair to the mother and her child.
Recently, you told Lindsay Jaynes that she would have to cover up or bottle feed her baby. This advice came after she had stated that her baby will not take a bottle or feed while covered. Would you want to eat your dinner while being suffocated under a blanket?
It's true that many Americans have a phobia of the human body and consider it in some way shameful or obscene. Some of this comes from our roots in Puritanism. But it isn't the sixteenth century anymore. It's time for your policies to be more progressive. Let moms breastfeed their babies as biology intended them to do.
