I have been to plenty of meetings where women in the audience breastfed their babies, but New Jersey councilwoman Larissa Chen-Hoerning took it one step further. Chen-Hoerning breastfed her six-week-old baby during a public meeting. NJ.com explains:
Near the end of the meeting, 3rd Ward Councilwoman Larissa Chen-Hoerning brought her 6-week-old son, Enzo, onto the dais with her and began to breastfeed him while the council debated an ordinance regulating overnight truck parking on borough streets.
Chen-Hoerning said that she doesn’t think the act of nursing her baby, discreetly shielded from view by the desk in front of her, should be stigmatized as dirty or shameful.
“I want to help women say ‘Someone else is out there breastfeeding, and maybe it’s OK to do,’” Chen-Hoerning said last week.
This really shouldn’t be news, but in today’s climate where breastfeeding is still viewed as something that should be done covertly, I applaud the councilwoman for taking care of her baby while fulfilling her civic duty. La Leche League International spokeswoman Loretta McCallister told NJ.com that she had “never heard of an elected official like Chen-Hoerning breastfeeding her baby while conducting official business at a public meeting”. Chen-Hoerning also wears her baby at council meetings.
She made an important statement in support of breastfeeding women everywhere and I applaud her for that and for doing what she is determined to do.
Hooray for her! I think its awesome not only because she is doing what comes naturally without pause but that she is able to bring her infant to work with her. If only more moms could we would see alot of happier woman and babies!!!
This is an old topic now but I would like to say this has and always will be a Puritan
Society and Liberal Democrats who have to always prove something have to get it
into their *thick heads..Lynn Redgrave knew this 30 years ago and found out the
hard way, since she is deceased I really don’t wish to bring it up anymore.
* The Breastfeeding Councilwomen from RP will not be re-elected since she
dropped out of local community politics.