BEIJING - New mother Geng Zitong remembers vividly the helplessness she felt when she had to breastfeed her four-month-old son in public to soothe his loud cries, despite her desperate attempts to find a nursing room.
“I was almost in tears when the only nursing room I found in the mall, after searching three floors, was locked though there was no one inside,” said the 30-year-old, as she recalled the September 2022 incident where she was out alone with her son.
“I felt very frustrated, and we were drawing a lot of stares because my son was crying so loudly... I decided to find a quiet corner near the toilet to feed him,” added Ms Geng, who lives in Beijing. “Before that, I had held him closer, patted his back and rocked him gently, but nothing worked.”
The adequacy of China’s public nursing rooms – and the general lack of support for breastfeeding mothers – was in the spotlight earlier this week after a video of women stepping up to surround a mother breastfeeding her child at a bus terminal in Beijing went viral on Sunday.
In the 30-second clip, a mother is seen trying to calm her crying baby, who is strapped to her front, by pacing around her seat while carrying a big backpack and a waist pouch. A black luggage bag is parked next to her.
She then sits down and starts breastfeeding her child, drawing glances from nearby passengers, when another woman approaches her. The two women speak briefly before the second woman starts using the luggage bags belonging to the two of them to form a barrier.
More women then join the “wall of love” – as netizens called it – to give the mother privacy as she feeds her baby.
A hashtag on the video has so far received more than 300 million views and sparked more than 160,000 comments on microblogging platform Weibo, with netizens calling for more support for breastfeeding mothers.
China, whose population fell for the first time in more than 60 years in 2022, has been trying to encourage couples to have more than one child by loosening birth restrictions and rolling out policy changes including cash stipends and longer paid leave days.
The National Health Commission (NHC) has also been encouraging women to purely breastfeed newborns in the first six months – which is in line with World Health Organisation recommendations – and to continue nursing till the baby is 24 months old, even after introducing other foods.
But the lack of nursing rooms at workplaces and in office buildings is a major hindrance to working women who want to express milk after their maternity leave ends, noted Dr Wang Fang, a gynaecologist at a public hospital in Inner Mongolia.
“It is very rare that a mother would not try breastfeeding, but it can be hard to go beyond six months because they have to go back to work,” she said.
“What is most important is to provide support at public places such as malls, transport hubs and offices to those who are willing and able to breastfeed.”
Ms Geng, who has watched the viral video, said: “I could understand perfectly how the mother felt when she decided to breastfeed in public. At that point in time, the priority was to feed her baby, and not so much about ‘modesty’.”
Adblock test (Why?)
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiWGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnN0cmFpdHN0aW1lcy5jb20vYXNpYS92aXJhbC12aWRlby1oaWdobGlnaHRzLWJyZWFzdGZlZWRpbmctcHJvYmxlbXMtaW4tY2hpbmHSAQA?oc=5
2023-01-31 12:58:04Z
CBMiWGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnN0cmFpdHN0aW1lcy5jb20vYXNpYS92aXJhbC12aWRlby1oaWdobGlnaHRzLWJyZWFzdGZlZWRpbmctcHJvYmxlbXMtaW4tY2hpbmHSAQA
