A mother's complaint about the embarrassment she felt while breast-feeding in public has led to a government decision to give nursing moms more privacy.
If an ambitious plan put forward by the city's transportation department goes through, in less than three years new mothers using public transport will be able to breast-feed their babies in special rooms instead of in public.
Such waiting halls have already come up at the Shanghai Railway Station and the Shanghai South Railway Station, two major train terminals in the city. The plan is to have a screened area at major long- distance bus stations too.
Terminal Two of the Shanghai Pudong International Airport that is now under construction will include baby-care rooms and the domestic Hongqiao Airport, which is being expanded, will also include such facilities, according to the Shanghai Urban Construction Bureau.
It was a new mother's complaint filed nine months ago that is responsible for all these measures, according to the standing committee of the Shanghai Municipal Political Consultative Conference.
On November 19, 2006, the woman surnamed Lu, from the city's suburban Jiading District, appealed to the mayor for baby-care rooms in public places in an e-mail. She described her embarrassing breast-feeding experience on a train.
"My baby started crying when I was on the train that day and I knew he was hungry," Lu said.
"I hesitated, but finally decided to feed him when he got louder and louder.
"I knew some people were staring, some disapproved and I felt embarrassed, but I had no choice."
Lu later browsed Internet forums for support, but discovered that most people found mothers breast-feeding their children in public, offensive.
Angry and frustrated, Lu wrote to the mayor's office, which forwarded the e-mail to the Shanghai Women's Federation. The federation then proposed baby-care facilities in public places at the annual session of Shanghai's political consultative conference, the city's advisory body, this January.
Shi Qiuqin, an official with the federation, told China Daily that breast milk is the most healthy food for babies, especially in the first six months of life, but lack of proper facilities in public places makes it difficult for mothers to breast-feed when they are out.
In 2006, more than 130,000 babies were born in the city. And it is expected that another 130,000 will be born in this golden pig year.
But according to a survey by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), breast-feeding rates in the first four months of a baby's life in China have been declining from around 76 percent in 1998 to 64 percent at present. And in big cities such as Shanghai, where more women work, the rate is even lower.
Xu Jing, 30, a mother-to-be, said she would never consider breast-feeding her baby in public.
"I will give my baby bottled milk in that situation," she said.
Zhu, an office employee, said that she had encountered women breast-feeding their babies in front of her in very crowded train. "I was so embarrassed that I didn't know where to look. And I found that most of the others standing nearby had the same look."
(China Daily August 30, 2007)
