Parenthood
Daycare Provider Breastfeeds Baby Without Mom's Consent
The daycare employee was not remorseful for her actions.
D.G. Sciortino
03.14.19

Many health organizations recommend breastfeeding as a healthier alternative to formula feeding your child.

Not only is it free but it, technically, lacks the synthetic chemicals that are used to make formula.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says children should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of their life. About six in 10 babies are breastfed until about six months, with one in four of those infants being breastfed exclusively.

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CDC

However, regardless of what any institution tells us, this is America and we have the liberty to make our own choices for ourselves and our families.

One woman says her choice was taken from her when her baby’s childcare provider breastfed her baby without her consent.

This bizarre story appeared on Slate.com after an anonymous woman asked Slate’s Dear Prudence column in a weekly chat what she should do about this situation.

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Slate Screenshot

The unnamed woman explained that she is a single mother of an adopted baby who is formula feeding her daughter because she is unable to lactate.

” I am a working mom as well, and found a home daycare provider who seemed amazing—she has two kids of her own (one a little older than my daughter) and has run this home daycare for five years or so,” the woman wrote.

The woman says she was put off by a comment the care provider made on the first day when she pulled out bottles of formula before dropping her daughter off.

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Slate Screenshot

“You feed her that slop?” the care provider said.

The single mom just ignored it since she’s “used to it.”

About two months after dropping her daughter off almost daily with this woman, the mother decided to pick her daughter up early and walked through the side door of the home.

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Slate Screenshot

“I started the sign-out process, and as I was doing so, the daycare assistant walked by and saw me. She tried to engage me with conversation, but I wanted to get my daughter so I brushed by her. When I got to the area of the house where my daughter was, I about fell over. The daycare provider was NURSING MY BABY!” the mom said.

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Slate Screenshot

Can you freaking imagine?!?!

Now there are plenty of women who provide breastmilk or breastfeed for women who cannot do that for their own children.

And, in my opinion, that’s a beautiful thing; but this daycare provider didn’t ask if she could breastfeed this woman’s child.

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Slate Screenshot

“I marched over, took the baby from her arms, and asked her if she was crazy. The provider said that she was saving my baby from chemicals I was trying to force into her body and I should thank her for doing it all these months! I didn’t say anything; I just grabbed the diaper bag and got the hell out of there,” the single mom said.

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She, of course, said she never brought her daughter back.

She was writing Dear Prudence to ask what she should do and if she should report her to the umbrella company her daycare operates under or post about it on social media.

The column’s response was basically the same as mine.

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“Oh my GOD. That is my first thought, is just: Oh, my GOD. If this isn’t worth reporting her to a supervising agency, I don’t know what is. Yes, your baby is, in the long run, safe and sound,” they responded. “But the whole point of providing daycare for working parents is saying, ‘You can trust me to keep your children safe and well–cared for, and I will act according to your wishes in your absence,’ not ‘As soon as you walk out the door, I’m going to raise your child how I see fit.'”

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Slate Screenshot

I can’t imagine how traumatizing this must have been for this mother. Especially to have her trust violated like that. It pays to check, double check, and triple check up on the people we have around our children.

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