Heather MacLean and
Why I am Passionate about
Breastfeeding Discreetly in Public

Why I am Passionate about
Breastfeeding Discreetly in Public:

I've seen a mother who is so comfortable and confident, that when her baby communicates that it is hungry, she can feed it, and in so doing, build trust.

In contrast, I've seen mothers who are embarrassed and/or feel negative social pressure. When her baby is hungry, either she is unable to feed it right away, or the baby gets something less healthy.

It's sad, and I don't think it's nescessary.

The most efficient use of my energy is to help include scenes of mothers discretely breastfeeding in the background of major motion pictures.

We unknowingly learn so much from images, imprinting. Research shows images are more powerful than words written or spoken.

Along this line, I have created the attitude adjusting video, "Nursing Mothers Welcome", which shows over one hundred scenes of mothers of a variety of ages, cultures, and socioeconomic groups discreetly breastfeeding in many different public places.

"Nursing Mothers Welcome" reminds me of a patchwork quilt; cozy, warm, colorful,and filled with snippet after snippet of beautiful smiles from mothers and babies.

I did some research as I gathered footage. The study of marketing, beneficial propaganda in High School inspired me.   For my Sociology class, I created a survey to assess my classmates' attitude about breastfeeding before and after seeing the footage I had taken.  I asked the class to anonymously rate 21 questions on a scale from one to five, with one being beautiful and natural, and five being vulgar and indecent.

Some examples of the questions were: a woman breastfeeding a newborn in the hospital, a woman breastfeeding her baby at a business meeting attended by
both men and women, and a women breastfeeding her two year old at the park.

The results showed that the class found the scene which involved the 2 year old to be the most distasteful.
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Two days after I gathered the results, I showed 3 minutes of my footage. Afterwards I again passed out a survey, to see if there was a change, hopefully toward acceptance. To reduce the chance of people getting annoyed at being asked to answer the same questions, I limited my survey to the five most emotionally charged questions.   I was concerned their irritation might skew the results.

All but two of the students were now comfortable with the idea of breastfeeding - a big change. That's when I got to see that, "Nursing Mothers Welcome" is powerful!

It seems that discussing an image is more alarming than seeing it.

I shared the results with the class. When I mentioned that the age of the child was listed as the most distasteful, I was harshly told, "Well, there weren't any two year olds in the video."   This person did not believe that there was a two year old in my footage, so I happily showed my video again, pointing out the scenes with two and three year olds.   I guess it didn't look as bad as it sounded. The room was silent.

I knew I was on the right track.  I decided to have no dialogue in the film, because when there are words it's possible to argue with them in your head.   Images just enter your conscientiousness.

I chose to use Beethoven's 6th Pastoral Symphony for the music. It has been in style for 300 years and will probably be for another 300 years and more. The piece is delightful, I avoided using the "heavier" part.

As I gathered footage I asked people what images they wanted me to include. One man said, "A woman is beautiful in yet another way when breastfeeding and he should gaze at her and fondly kiss her."

I show women breastfeeding while shopping, cooking, at a romantic candle-lit restaurant, on an bus, and in the back seat of a car while holding the baby in a car seat. I even show a doctor breastfeeding her baby in her office.

"Nursing Mothers Welcome" is Le Leache League and WIC approved.

Having no dialogue, it is world wide ready. I'm told that India and other countries, while trying to be as American as possible, assume Americans don't breastfeed; and babies are dying as a result.

" Nursing Mothers Welcome" shows Americans breastfeeding.

This message would be so much more powerful coming to other countries through major motion picture, our calling card.

There have been several people, some representatives from hospitals, who have come up to me to say thank you and/or to get more copies. Women feel less alone, free to do what feels natural, and free to give the gift they crave to give. I have witnessed women thrilled to become empowered.

One pregnant lady said after her husband saw it he gave a sigh of relief; stating, "That's OK."

As I went to conferences I learned that one of the sad trends at this time is, women begin to breastfeed for the first time, think they are failing, and give up as failures.

These women were succeeding but didn't know it. Without seeing others do it, a great deal of the,"of course I can" is lost. I would like to protect as many women as possible from that fate.

My mother stopped breastfeeding me because she was embarrassed.

"Nursing Mothers Welcome" is a form of business card. I give it to directors, among others, along with a letter of intent suggesting ways and whys to add breastfeeding to major motion pictures.

My ideal job would be to help directors locate and add breastfeeding dyads to their films.