To Cover Or Not To Cover

There have been many discussions/debates on the topic of covering up whilst breastfeeding, by using a scarf, poncho, nursing cover etc

Whilst I agree that breastfeeding is a prefectly natural thing to do, and we should be able to do it without being made to feel awkward or uncomfortable, there are lots of women that do not feel confident enough to feed without the extra security of something covering them, which I can totally understand.

Many women are perfectly happy with their body and do not mind who sees it, take a look at any beach and you will find thousands of women wearing skimpy bikinis, or going topless without a care in the world.

You will also see many women covered up and trying their best to look invisible, which I think is the same with breastfeeding in public, it is not always about other peoples reactions, but your own personal feelings.

Thinking back over my breastfeeding journey, which began over 14 years ago, I have breastfed many times in public, sometimes with a nursing cover, sometimes without, depending on the situation and the place.

I spend lots of time at the Rugby Club where my husband plays, at the beginning I used to go and feed Xene in the car, as I felt more secure in there, as the time went on and the family size increased it became much more difficult to bundle them all into the car just so I could feed the smallest one, which made me make the decision to just feed our baby in the clubhouse, regardless of who was in there. I am proud to say that I have never had a negative comment, in fact the complete opposite, everyone has been extremely complimentary. This season I sat and fed Tyrus, one of the younger lads looked over and went quite red, he was then met with about five comments from other players that "It was just Mandi getting her boobs out again, only for the baby though!!" which made me chuckle but did not make me feel self conscious in any way.

Everyone has a right to feed their baby in public, without any backlash but as we all know this isn't always the case, therefore, if a Nursing Cover of any description is going to make a new mum feel more confident and secure about feeding her baby then I would rather that she did this and continued with her breastfeeding journey, instead of stopping and going onto formula because she felt too embarrassed.

That is just my opinion, if you would like to offer your own opinion, please comment below xxx