Brain Child

As I sat in my lazy boy rocker nursing my son for his afternoon nap, I was thinking of something for the community of nursing moms. I started on the thought because I don't get to go out very much. Partly due to lack of transportation, but also because of the fact that I'm the only breastfeeding mom in the little town I live in. There's plenty of other moms with young babies, my boyfriend's cousins, all within walking distance. But I don't really know them and don't socialize with them. Which makes me feel Chase is missing out on the socializing that most babies his age would get.

So I thought how great it would be to have a place where I could socialize with other nursing moms, in public. And nurse in public as well. I'm very much pro NIP, but only do that in the car, as my son is very easily distracted and most stores do not have an area for sitting down. I was pleased to discover that Babies R' Us has a Mother's room area beside the restrooms. I haven't used it yet, but next time, I will.

So here's my idea. A small strip mall or bazaar where all the shops are geared towards parenting and pregnancy with many comfortable places to nurse. Perhaps even an enclosed play park with comfortable benches and a lovely garden. A lovely way nursing moms could spend the whole day, nursing at their leisure, meeting other moms and doing their shopping. There'd be cafes and clothing stores, book stores and toy stores, maybe a baby superstore or department stores aimed at children and mom's in particular. All with comfortable seating areas where moms are welcomed and encouraged to nurse their children. Also private rooms for nursing babies who prefer quiet, spaced often throughout the strip mall, and many restrooms for pregnant nursing mommies.

Course, dads would be welcomed too. The idea is to provide a place where people who are offended by public nursing won't be going. Nursing moms have the right in most states to nurse wherever they have a legal right to be. If anyone tries to kick you out of a store or public place for nursing, you can sue their friggin' pants off! Despite this, most women aren't comfortable nursing in public because of how many people would be up in arms about it.

And for the active mom, she may find nursing discouraging as she won't be able to do it any where she goes. My son has always hated formula and I'd had to mix breastmilk into it to get him to drink it at all. Besides, formula was always a major upset to his bowels, often causing constipation. Pumping is laborious and can take a month to get enough to last for a single outing. I'm sure many moms give up in part due to the lack of freedom.

I want to promote and encourage women to breastfeed. I feel if little strip malls like this, which would be in shopping districts were to pop up all over the country, I'm sure the statistics of mothers who continue to nurse for at least the first year would steadily rise. Our health care system and government agencies say they want to encourage women to breastfeed, yet there's nothing in our public buildings to accommodate for breastfeeding mothers.

I'll write more on this later. Please, feel free to share with me any ideas to get this into action or any comments you may have on this.