A woman breast-feeding her 3-month-old son at a public pool was told to stop because she was breaking the pool’s rules that ban food or drink near the water, London’s Daily Mail reported.
Laura Whotton of Carrington in Nottingham, England, was swimming at the John Carroll Leisure Center in Nottingham when she decided to breast-feed her son Joshua.
“You are in a public area, you can’t breast-feed here because there are children here,” she said a lifeguard told her.
Whotton said she was offered a private room to feed Joshua, but she declined the offer, because she wanted to keep an eye on her older son Thomas, who was still swimming in the pool.
Whotton, 26, filed a complaint with the Nottingham City Council.
“The council’s policy is to enable mothers to breast-feed in all council centers, including leisure centers,” said a spokesman for the local authority. “The only exception to this rule at leisure centers is in the swimming pool and surrounding area, where in the interest of safety and hygiene, there is a policy of no food and drink. The rule also covers breast-feeding, as it would bottle feeding of a baby.”
The council has since offered a full apology and amended its breast-feeding policy after the incident.
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