Mom ‘thrown’ out of store for breastfeeding baby

IF YOU can’t stand breastfeeding, look away just like you do with other social ills such as corruption, poverty and homelessness.

That’s the message from a group of breastfeeding lobbyists and nursing mothers who are organising a protest this weekend after a mother of a newborn baby was marched out of a popular clothing store because she wanted to breastfeed.

Tasneem Botha, of Fairways, said she felt “humiliated and hurt” after she was instructed by the management of Edgars at Cavendish Square to leave the store after trying to feed her five-week-old daughter, Samia, last Tuesday. After a Facebook post about her experience was shared, a group of women under the banner of Normalise Breastfeeding SA, is set to march to the store on Sunday to raise their concern about her treatment.

”My baby was sleeping throughout, but she woke up and was screaming for a feed. I looked for a quiet spot and sat on a bench by the shoe section. I just double-checked with the manager to check if I could breastfeed there. She told me that I was not allowed to breastfeed inside the store and instructed me to into a changing room inside the mall,” she said.

With a screaming baby and not knowing where the changing room was, she ended up breastfeeding her baby outside the shop.

But even more humiliating for this mother-of-two were comments and the mockery shown by other women staff members when she left the store.

“It was the most humiliating experience. I felt discriminated against,” she said. Botha was later told that it was the policy of Edgars not to breastfeed inside the store after complaints from men who were “uncomfortable” looking at breastfeeding moms.

“To me it is hypocritical of Edgars management to order a breastfeeding mom outside when they have large posters of half-naked women wearing their lingerie. It’s weird that men get upset when they see a breastfeeding mother, but they don’t when they see large lingerie posters inside the shop. Besides I wasn’t going to show the entire breast… breastfeeding can be done discreetly,” she said.

Anél Olsson, director of Normalise Breastfeeding SA – a breastfeeding lobby group that recently called for anti-discriminatory legislation to protect nursing mothers – said the latest incident reflected the level of discrimination that mothers faced in society.

Nawaal Jardine, Edgars’ store manager at Cavendish, refused to comment on the matter, saying she had been advised not to talk to the media. She referred media questions to Edcon head office in Joburg, but there was no response at the time of going to print.