You Need To Cover Up!

It's a woman's right to breastfeed. It's not anyone else's right to decide for her, Emily Gillette says. "It's not OK for anyone to scrutinize me for breastfeeding my child or to make me feel ashamed or embarrassed."

There are times when it seems like modern life conspires against being a good mother but no one ever said it would be easy. For instance, breastfeeding. Over the last 30 years, it has become increasingly clear that breastfeeding is the best start you can give your child.

Breast milk is a super form of nutrition for babies; scientists are amazed at the way nature has been able to concentrate so much good in such an easily digestible form. Breast milk contains immunities, which help protect babies from disease and infection. Pediatricians urges moms to breast feed from at least a year up to three years of age. Breastfeeding mom's lose baby weight faster and studies are proving that breastfeeding may reduce the risk of breast cancer.

Breastfeeding is catching on with new moms. Some 70 percent give it a try right after birth. But studies show that six months later, only about half are still nursing. One reason why could be the experience of Emily Gillette, a 27-year-old mom from Santa Fe, N.M. She made national headlines this month when she was forced off a commercial plane for breastfeeding.

Emily, said her troubles began when she and her husband and their almost 2-year-old daughter River were traveling from Vermont to New York. The flight was delayed three hours. The family finally boarded their Freedom Airlines flight at 10 p.m., well past the toddler's normal bedtime.

As they proceeded to their seats at the back of the little plane. Mother and daughter took the window seat in the second to last row; River's dad took the aisle seat. Emily tucked in next to the window and began to discreetly nurse River. That's when Emily noticed the lone flight attendant holding out a blanket, telling Emily that she needed to cover up.

Emily say, "I was holding my shirt closed with one hand. There was literally not a bit of my breast exposed. I was being as discreet as possible." Emily refused to accept the blanket and stated that the flight attendant responded; "You are offending me. You need to cover up."

Emily refused again and the flight attendant huffed off, and returned with a ticket agent, who told the family that they were being thrown off the plane. Stunned, the Gillette family gathered their things and started moving toward the door. "Gillette started quietly crying," says Elizabeth Beopple, Gillette's Vermont-based lawyer. "She was so humiliated." As they left the plane, the fight attendant was standing there, and Emily said in tears, "Why are you doing this?" The flight attendant then pointed to the door and said, "Get off the plane."

One of the copilots followed them out and apologetically explained that he could not overrule the flight attendant's decision. "He said, I'm so sorry. I have two children, and there's nothing I can do about this." The same way that I have control over the cockpit, she has control over the passenger area."

Delta arranged a hotel for the Gillette family for that night and booked them on a US Air flight for the next morning. (And yes, Emily nursed her daughter on that flight with no objection from anyone.)

As the story broke, a spokesman for Freedom Airlines told the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press that "a breast -feeding mother is perfectly acceptable on an aircraft, providing she is feeding the child in a discreet way" that doesn't bother others.

As protests rose, Freedom Airlines issued a written statement asserting that they "firmly support a mother's right to breastfeed a child" and they "do not expect (and will not in the future request) that nursing mothers use a blanket to cover their child while nursing." The Gillette family's version of the events was not disputed and the flight attendant was disciplined..

Nursing mothers gathered to protest at Delta ticket counters during the Thanksgiving travel rush. Gillette attended the nurse-in in Albuquerque and said, "I felt very lucky to have a chance to say thank you."

Gillette's experience is not as rare as one would think. Last year in Wisconsin and Massachusetts, Victoria's Secret would not allow women to breastfeed in their stores. A Maryland woman launched a nurse-in against Starbucks when she was asked to move to a restroom to continue feeding her baby. In Texas, a restaurant refused to serve a breastfeeding mother and in Illinois a young mother was kicked out of her health club for nursing on the premises.

Since 1993, many states have found it necessary to pass laws saying that breastfeeding women cannot be arrested for indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, trespassing, lewdness or any type of sexual crime-unbelievable as that may seem.

38 states have also passed laws giving women the right to breastfeed in any public or private place she'd otherwise be allowed to be. States that don't have any (or limited) protection include Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming, as well as the District of Columbia.

Emily Gillette has decided not to let the matter drop. She has filed a complaint with the Vermont Human Rights Commission. Vermont law recognizes a woman's right to breastfeed as a civil right.