Breastfeeding in public

[Deeba1234]

Re: Breastfeeding in public

@Sasha21

When I was about 7-8 years, was at the hospital with my mom and we were in the ladies waiting area (in Middle East a lot of the hospitals have seperate waiting areas), so anyway there was this lady fully covered, abaya nikaab, the works. Then suddenly she whips out we boob over the top of her abaya (as in from the neckline) and starts feeding her baby. And she had a headscarf on top, that she could have easily postioned to where it was covering her but not the baby. But she fed that baby like that the whole time. Now as a kid I think that was the first time I’d ever seen a boob so I was embarrassed (Because ofcourse I knew ur supposed to cover urself). So ofcourse I looked and then looked away the whole time cuz I didn’t want to stare or whatever. But there were other kids there, boys, or in fact even girls, who were young enough not to know to look away. But that lady didn’t care, the kids were like standing there and just staring at her, cuz ofcourse it was a spectacle for them, I don’t remember if their moms asked them to stop staring or not but anyway, I just found it an odd sight. And Islam doesn’t allow to uncover ur awra in front of other women too, unless it is really needed. So I found it weird that the lady didn’t care to be discrete at all. The least she could do was move to a corner of the waiting room, or face the wall etc. Anyway I’m all up for public breastfeeding but with discretion.

Just been reading up on this and apparently it isn’t considered wrong to breastfeed in this way in many parts of the ME.. You mentioned this was in a hospital so I doubt she would have been allowed to do it anyway if it wasn’t socially/culturally acceptable..

Modesty and Breastfeeding

                             Observant Muslim women                                 [dress modestly](http://islam.about.com/od/dress/p/clothing.htm)                                  in public, and when nursing generally try to maintain this modesty  with clothing, blankets or scarves which cover the chest. However, in  private or amongst other women, it may seem strange to some people that  Muslim women generally nurse their babies openly. Nursing a child is  considered a natural part of mothering and is not viewed as an obscene  or sexual act in the slightest.                                

Source: Breastfeeding in Islam - Breastfeeding in the Quran

“Muslim” there seems to refer to Arab women, I’ve seen quite a few posts in other forums with comments similar to your post, Sasha.. I think they reason that uncovering your breast is an exception to the rules on awra as it doesn’t hold any sexual meaning to them.. Whether or not we agree it’s interesting to note the different attitudes to towards it..