Nursing Mother “Bullied” for Breastfeeding in South Carolina Wal-Mart

Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:06:42 +0000

First a swimming pool change room in Ontario, now a Wal-Mart dressing room in South Carolina…. Business owners need to recognize that there are laws that prevent them from asking nursing mothers to move to a changing room to breastfeed! In this latest incident, nursing mother Heather Silvis said she had just sat down on a bench in the store and had not even begun to nurse her daughter when a supervisor and four Wal-Mart employees began yelling at her that she couldn’t breastfeed there. Local news WISTV quotes Ms. Silvis:

Then one of them stood up and pushed my shopping cart with my 21-month-old baby in it and my purse around the corner and I was told, ‘If you want to breast feed, you’re going to have to go in there.’ So I followed my child who was in my shopping cart went into the dressing room and nursed my baby.

Oh my goodness, I think Ms. Silvis showed a great deal of restraint. If someone moved a shopping cart with one of my children in it, I would have been stunned, then outraged!

South Carolina law protects breastfeeding:

SECTION 20-7-97. Breastfeeding.

(A) A woman may breastfeed her child in any location where the mother and her child are authorized to be.

(B) Breastfeeding a child in a location where the mother is authorized to be is not considered indecent exposure.

The Wal-Mart did not apologize, explaining only that the dressing room was offered to Silvis as a courtesy.

Photo of a Wal-Mart sign by Brave New Films

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Breastfeeding 1-2-3 » Heather Silvis

Nursing Mother “Bullied” for Breastfeeding in South Carolina Wal-Mart