Southern Vectis is marking World Breastfeeding Week – Sunday 1st August to Saturday 7th August – by encouraging more of the Isle of Wight’s new mothers to feel confident when breastfeeding out in public.
The bus operator is making it clear that breastfeeding mothers are welcome on all Southern Vectis services across the Island.
Nikki Honer, Southern Vectis’ Head of Communications, says:
“We want to ensure those living on the island know we fully support their right to breastfeed in public – including on any of our buses.
“Many of our customers are mothers and children, and we understand completely that babies need to be fed when they are hungry. To this end, we are signed up members of the Breastfeeding Welcome scheme.”
The principle behind the initiative is to have a recognisable logo that women can identify with and feel confident that they will be well received to breastfeed at a particular venue. Local venues and services agree to display a special sticker and sign up for a Certificate of Good Practice.
The Breastfeeding Welcome scheme aims to facilitate greater acceptance and promotion of breastfeeding in commercial and community settings with the overall goal of supporting our local breastfeeding mothers and increasing local breastfeeding rates.
Well done 🙂 More companies and venues should be coming out and supporting breast feeding.
How very “P.C” I wonder how long it will be before someone is accused of “looking”!
I don’t know why this is such a big issue? It’s really not difficult to be discreet when breast feeding a baby in public. Every mother I’ve known carries something like a muslin cloth, small towel or some-such with them whenever they go out with their baby and I certainly did. It simply gets draped over the baby whilst it’s feeding. It’s not difficult and is something mothers have always done in the past. The vast majority of people would probably be unaware that the baby is feeding. Not everything needs to be public and be made an issue but it seems like some people actually want to court controversy.
I was in a restaurant once and there was a group of people nearby, including a woman wearing a big , floppy sweater and with a small baby. I noticed that after a while that the baby had vanished but there was now a bump in the sweater. Nothing for anyone to object to or be embarrassed by.
it should never of been a issue in the first place, its all well and good sout vectis promoting it on their bus but they cant control the public who can be really rude and judge mental. making the mums feel totally alienated.
shouldn’t be an issue anyway…
two choices –
accept that baby will be having its dinner on the bus or have the baby scream the place down continually.