Beyoncé may be the perfect spokeswoman for public breastfeeding. According to Us Weekly, an observer spotted the singer breastfeeding her 7-week-old daughter, Blue Ivy, while dining with husband Jay-Z at NYC’s Sant Ambroeus last Saturday.
Breastfeeding advocates are praising the move by the 30-year-old Houston native, saying that she is both helping take the stigma away from breastfeeding and serving as a role model for young women.
“I think Beyoncé has a huge impact on being able to re-normalize breastfeeding and give women confidence to do the same,” Emma Kwasnica, a childbirth and breastfeeding educator, told ABC News. “Images of popstars and celebrities giving their babies nourishment will never harm our cause.”
Beyoncé’s public breastfeeding has come just in time to join the ongoing debate surrounding public breastfeeding. In February, Georgia mother Nirvana Jennette says she was forced out of her church for breastfeeding her child. She’s now organizing a “Georgia Statewide Nurse-In” at the Woodbine Courthouse on March 5 in the hopes of changing the law. Georgia law currently allows a mother to nurse her child anywhere, but in her petition, Jennette states that “there is no enforcement provision. A law without enforcement protects no one.”
Other nurse-ins, or breastfeeding flashmobs, have made headlines recently. In January, Kwasnica organized one to protest Facebook’s removal of breastfeeding pictures and Michelle Hickman called for a nationwide nurse-in last December after she was humiliated for breastfeeding at a Houston Target store.
The American Academy of Pediatrics released a new policy statement on Monday that reaffirms their pro-breastfeeding stance.
