Finally, something I can be pro-choice about. Should nursing moms be asked to cover up in public? Of course not, but it’s entirely up to the mother whether or not she wants to “go commando” while breastfeeding.
Before I began nursing my oldest child, I imagined I would be freely breastfeeding, onlookers be damned, with my head held high. But after a failed attempt to nurse while covered at a Starbucks, I quickly learned that the bold nursing image of myself wasn’t the reality. I felt embarrassed while my daughter kept fussing and pulling away, leaving me exposed and uncomfortable. Until my second and third daughters came along, I nursed exclusively at home or in the car. These days however, I can nurse my third child quite easily while covered, though I do from time to time go uncovered when I feel it’s too hot for her otherwise. Covering up has not come without it’s own share of controversy either. Other women have felt the need to inform me that I am not championing the bare breasted movement because I often use a cover, as if breastfeeding itself wasn’t stressful enough! From what I’ve experienced, Canadians are blessed with a fairly lax attitude toward uncovered breastfeeding in public places. In the United States (my homeland), that is not always the case, as this viral video from Texas has exposed.
My opinion? It’s up to you, and whatever the effects are of witnessing bare boobs doing what they are intended to do, they pale in comparison to the impact the other kinds of nudity we’re faced with on a regular basis have. So if you happen to see a mother nursing in public (covered or not), give her a thumbs up and let her figure it out on her own.
by 
Well said. Breastfeeding can be very stressful, especially if your baby is not a quiet calm nurser. My first child was born in Africa, where breastfeeding is the norm. But I was quite surprised to find African children climbing up onto the running boards of a landrover in order to see whether my breasts were white. I had to laugh.
You’d be surprised just how political breast feeding can be. I know I was. Last year there was a huge protest against Facebook on this issue. One woman had posted pictures of her breast feeding her baby, and the pictures were flagged and removed for inappropriate content. There was a huge outcry, and it got pretty heated. For a while there, a fair number of people on my Facebook feed had pictures of La Señora de la Leche as their profile pics, and a few people had their accounts deactivated. check out a synopsis of the kerfuffle on YouTube. (You might want to skip ahead to about 2:45–the first bit is pretty slow.
I have five kids–my youngest is nearly 4 months old–and we have been on family hikes a few times this last month. I once was nursing perched on a boulder (covered) at the top of a 2 and a half mile trail as a Brownie troop filed by. I was happy to have the cover. But on Saturday I was sitting on a log next to a waterfall and the cover was not staying put. Since passersby would have had to work fairly hard to see any boobies I let it go (which I could not have done with my first–I would have been mortified).
My rule of thumb is that I try not to give anyone the full monty but I’m not being an exhibitionist if the only part of me exposed is a little skin around my waist where my shirt is lifted.
But if anyone gave me guff in Portland, OR I’d be pretty surprised and tell them I was being sustainable.