Motion to support breastfeeding across province heads to Municipalities NL

The deputy mayor of St. John's saysher resolution to support nursing parents and babies would help municipalities across the province become more breastfeeding-friendly and one local parent agrees that that's needed.

On Monday, St. John's city council passed Sheilagh O'Leary'sresolutioncalling for Municipalities NL to work with the Baby-Friendly Council of Newfoundland and Labrador to adopt practices to make nursing parents more comfortable.

"It's about making sure that we create friendly spaces, community spaces that ensure that women feel comfortable breastfeeding," O'Leary said.

Becky Winsor has first-hand experience with that discomfort, as the mother of a seven-month-old. She saidher discomfort when nursing her son Cole in publicdiminished over time as she got used to it, but finding a spot that was comfortable and private still remained a challenge.

"There's not a whole lot of places where you can go and feel comfortable breastfeeding and know that the people around you won't be worried about that when you're doing it," Winsor said.

She experienced challenges as a nursing parent in St. John's, she said, and she expects other parents across the province would run into similar problems.

Breastfeeding numbers have hit new highs in Newfoundland and Labrador, with 76 per cent of new mothers in the province nursing their babies at the start of their lives as of 2017, compared with 30 percent in the 1970s, according to theBaby-Friendly Council of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Supporting nursing is part of the mandates of the City of St. John's and of Municipalities NL to promote healthy communities, O'Leary said something that fits with the provincial government's Way Forward plans as well.

Education and policy support

"It all works together," she said. "We just need to do the work."

If passed by Municipalities NL next month, that work would involve providing cities and towns with action items to take on, including education where needed and support in policy creation.

Winsor said she would welcome the initiative. Some people are comfortable nursing in more open spaces, she said, but others want to avoid the stigma that still exists around that, or need some privacy for any number of reasons and that can be hard to find.

She had to go nurse in the back seat of her car at times, Winsor said, and some people have no other option but tosit on a toilet in a public restroom to nurse because it's the only place that provides the amount of privacy they need.

"If you think about eating, which is what the baby is doing," she said, "you don't want to eat in the bathroom."

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