Michigan's Mackinac Bridge (Photo by Cece Chen)

The legislation now also prohibits removing a child from a car seat to nurse while the vehicle is in motion. Babies should only be nursed once the vehicle has been stopped in a safe place. With this change, Michigan is now eligible for additional federal traffic safety funds.

My spies tell me that some Michigan moms questioned why the new law specifically references breastfeeding. If you say that babies always need to be in their car seats when the vehicle is in motion, then arguably you do not need to say there is no exception for breastfeeding. However, the past exemption and recent cases of mothers driving while breastfeeding make the clarification a good idea!

What about you, moms? Have you ever taken your baby out of the car seat to nurse while the vehicle is in motion (you can post anonymously)? Have you ever gotten out of your seat belt to nurse your baby still strapped in the car seat (trust me, it can be done, even if it’s not safe)? Or do you always keep on driving with a screaming baby until it is safe to pull over to nurse?

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Michigan Senator Gretchen Whitmer has introduced Senate Bill 275 which would provide an exemption for nursing mothers from jury duty. If enacted as written the law would state:

A nursing mother may claim exemption from jury service for the period during which she is nursing her child and shall be exempt upon making the request if she provides a letter from a physician or a certified nurse midwife verifying that she is a nursing mother.

The bill is scheduled for hearing in the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, March 13, 2007, at 12:30 p.m. in 210 Farnum Building (at the corner of Capitol and Allegan). Michigan mothers interested in testifying at the hearing can contact the senator’s aide Patrick Crandell at (517) 373-1734.

As a Michigan mother myself I’m very happy to see this legislation introduced. This policy is already in place in some Michigan courts on an informal basis. I was called for jury duty when I was nursing my first child. I asked the court for an exemption and luckily the court was sympathetic. A friend who was not breastfeeding was not so lucky. She was merely given an extension to allow her time to find child care for her son. Frankly I think that the law should exempt all stay at home mothers of young children. It would be awfully difficult for a mother to arrange temporary full-time child care for an indeterminate number of days, and awfully traumatic for a child to be required suddenly to adapt to such care. It’s not like a planned transition to day care. I guess this is yet another advantage of breastfeeding!

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

The Rainbow Child Development Center team would like to make a statement in reply to your concerns. Parents choose to enroll their children at our centers with the understanding that we will provide care and activities to stimulate social, emotional, and physical development. One aspect of this service includes providing programming that provides opportunities for children to reach developmental and academic milestones. Rainbow Child Development Center is supportive of breastfeeding. We adhere to the State of Michigan licensing rule R400.5205a (effective 12/7/2007) by supporting and accommodating breastfeeding and by providing a designated place set aside to accommodate mothers and their children who are breastfeeding. We have chosen a designated area which provides a quiet, soft environment for the nursing child and Mom with comfortable adult seating that includes a rocking chair. This area offers a place that will allow one-on-one time for the breastfeeding child and Mom. Our primary goal is to offer a caring atmosphere for children combined with a structured curriculum.

Never at anytime has a parent enrolled in our program been prohibited from breastfeeding, nor were children “evacuated” due to exposure to breastfeeding. There are many decisions and choices that parents choose to make in the best interest of their child that we do not incorporate into our program, breastfeeding has always been welcomed and supported in our centers. We do not challenge the legality of breastfeeding in public. We do however stand behind our dedication to the quality care that we’ve given all children.

For more than 20 years Rainbow Child Development Center has supported, encouraged and welcomed breastfeeding parents and teachers. If you have further questions please address them to Karen Krygier at the Home Office 248 569-2500. The Director of the Plymouth location, Mary Buchin is only following her job duties and should not be subjected to calls and/or e-mails; her time needs to be focused on the children in her care not defending a policy that is in compliance with the State of Michigan guidelines. We understand that breastfeeding is a very sensitive topic and respect your right to express your opinion; however we respectfully ask that you direct your concerns related to designated breastfeeding areas to your respective legislators.

I thank Rainbow Child Development Center for the response. I am disappointed that the response did not clarify the situation at all. Let me break it down point by point.

Parents choose to enroll their children at our centers with the understanding that we will provide care and activities to stimulate social, emotional, and physical development. One aspect of this service includes providing programming that provides opportunities for children to reach developmental and academic milestones.

I hope this is true of all daycare centers. However, by making a point of stating that you provide “opportunities for children to reach developmental and academic milestones” you seem to be implying that stopping breastfeeding at a certain age is a developmental milestone. Your statement must be taken into context–you allowed the child to breastfeed in his room until he turned age two and then stopped allowing him to breastfeed in his room after he turned two. Why? You have not addressed what precipitated this change. Your actions and your statement make it clear you do not support extended breastfeeding.

I understand that extended breastfeeding is not every mother’s choice, but it is a valid choice (and really, shouldn’t the issue focus on the child’s need anyway?) I do not understand why children in the United States are pushed to wean at an early age. That simply is not the cultural norm around the world. The research of anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler, Ph.D., provides a great deal of insight into the natural age of weaning.

In addition to misconceptions about the appropriate age for weaning there are terrible misconceptions about the emotional benefits of extended breastfeeding. Clearly many people believe that extended breastfeeding fosters an unhealthy dependence in the child. I won’t even get into the question of whether such a dependence would be unhealthy (is there such a pressing need for a two-year-old to be “independent”?) I’ll simply dispute the fact that it creates a dependence in the first place. By meeting the needs of a child in the early years, the child develops self-confidence and the sense of security that allows him to be more independent than he would have been otherwise. You can read more about the philosophy of attachment parenting and its benefits from the Sears family of pediatricians.

We adhere to the State of Michigan licensing rule R400.5205a (effective 12/7/2007) by supporting and accommodating breastfeeding and by providing a designated place set aside to accommodate mothers and their children who are breastfeeding. We have chosen a designated area which provides a quiet, soft environment for the nursing child and Mom with comfortable adult seating that includes a rocking chair.

You have failed to answer the question why your “designated area” is the only area in which a mother and child may breastfeed in the center. Why are you unwilling to accommodate breastfeeding in the child’s room as well? Certainly the rule you cite does not prohibit that accommodation.

This area offers a place that will allow one-on-one time for the breastfeeding child and Mom.

That’s wonderful for the child and mother who wish to breastfeed in private. Katy and her son wished to breastfeed in his daycare room. By preventing that, you have not accommodated breastfeeding nor have you met the needs of the child.

Never at anytime has a parent enrolled in our program been prohibited from breastfeeding, nor were children “evacuated” due to exposure to breastfeeding.

You’re dancing around the issue, playing a game of semantics. You prohibited Katy and her son from breastfeeding in his daycare room. The other children were “removed from the room” when Katy and her son attempted to breastfeed.

There is one final glaring omission in the response and that’s an apology for the way in which Katy and her son were treated and how they were made to feel. Not even an honest statement of “I’m sorry this individual situation was poorly handled but we stand by our policies.” You are hiding behind the letter of the law and not owning up to the simple fact that you have chosen to restrict breastfeeding to one area and one area only and that you are unwilling to accommodate any other needs, even if that’s what it would have taken for the child to have a good experience upon drop-off and pick-up from your daycare center.

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Update: Please spread the word! The daycare in question is Rainbow Child Development Center in Plymouth, Michigan. You can contact the director Mary Buchin by email at: Plymouth@RainbowChildDevelopment.com or by phone at
(734) 455-2761. Rainbow Child Development Centers has locations throughout Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and New Jersey. To contact the national management, call (800) 90-LEARN or use the on-line contact form. Those of you in Michigan can contact your state representative and senator and urge them to introduce and support legislation protecting a woman’s right to breastfeed (and a child’s right as well)!

A Michigan mother wrote to me asking for help to spread the word about change needed in the Michigan law. Her call for change stems from a distressing experience she had at her son’s daycare. Katy writes:

This January, I was told that I was no longer permitted to breastfeed my twenty-six month old son in his room at daycare, although I had been nursing him at pick-up and drop-off without incident since he started daycare at three months. I immediately called the licensing board, which confirmed the daycare’s interpretation of the regulations. Following the recommendation of the local La Leche leader, I wrote a letter to the director, in which I explained my objections to the new regulation and included citations supporting the importance of breastfeeding past infancy. Nursing in the alternate location did not work, and the director did not respond to my requests for explanation. When I talked to the director’s supervisor, all I was told was that they had a right to make rules as they saw fit. After several days, I tried nursing him in his classroom again. The lead teacher ran to tell the director, and the other teachers evacuated the children. Here is the regulation that they cited:

“(a) The center shall support and accommodate breastfeeding.
(b) The center shall have a designated place set aside to accommodate mothers and their children who are breastfeeding.”

They are interpreting “designated place” to mean only the designated place, and decided that a room with two nursing toddlers (mine and another one) would no longer be designated. I feel that “designated place” should mean that they need to have a comfortable location available, not that that should be the only place to breastfeed.

I am sharing this incident for two reasons. First, I want other working mothers to know that this daycare chain, Rainbow Child Development Center, especially the center in Plymouth, Michigan, is not friendly to breastfeeding toddlers.

Secondly, although I have since switched daycare providers, I am still appalled that it is legal for a daycare to prevent a child from nursing wherever he or she needs to. If any of you feel the same way, please write to your legislators! I have a sample letter available if you want it. Especially since Wisconsin is currently considering legislation to legally protect breastfeeding in all public locations, now could be a good time to lobby our legislators to extend the same protections to Michigan women.

If you want more information or a copy of the sample letter to send to legislators, please contact Katy directly at “katykay at gmail dot com” (substitute the appropriate symbols for the email address). I contacted the daycare for a response and received no reply. Specifically I’d like to know whether the daycare’s concern revolved around the fact that the child was age two, given that he had breastfed in the classroom for several months prior to that incident. Did it really evacuate the children (Katy explains that the children were asked to go to the Gross Motor area to play when normally they would not be there at that time and the space was already occupied by another class)? Anyone else think that that disruption would be more traumatic for the children than seeing a mother breastfeed her child?

I really don’t understand why the center would object to a mother nursing in the classroom. I understand that some people are prudish and narrow-minded when it comes to breastfeeding in public, but I expect more from a childcare provider whose main concern should be the welfare of the child. If breastfeeding helps a child transition happily to and from daycare each day, that should be encouraged, not vilified. Other children in the room likely paid it no mind, and even if they did, all it requires is a simple statement that the child is nursing and leave it at that.

Does anyone else have an experience to share about nursing at daycare? Are you aware of any push for legislation in Michigan? Currently the state law exempts breastfeeding from the public nudity statute. Breastfeeding may also be taken into consideration in child custody cases. A search of the bills currently introduced in the state legislature did not reveal any measures pertaining to breastfeeding. What do you say, lactivists?

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3