Liz Wilcox, back left, and her 5-month-old daughter, Daphne, of South Glens Falls, visits with Nellie Lovenduski and her 4-month-old son, Max, of Wilton, at the Breastfeeding Cafe at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe in Glens Falls.

By MARTHA PETTEYS
Special to The Post-Star

Published on 3/13/2006

When a bunch of moms who want to promote breast-feeding in public go out for lunch, they head to Hooters, of course.

The wait staff at the Albany area restaurant was a little confused when more than a dozen local moms pulled up to their tables with nursing kids in tow, discretely using the body part the restaurant is known for highlighting via tight tops. The kids nursed, the moms ate lunch and the staff smiled awkwardly.

"The staff there didn't know what to do with us," said Lisa Cartier of Lake George, who helped organize that first meeting of "the breastfeeding café" last July.

The ladies meet at various local restaurants each month with the goal of offering support to new moms and normalizing public breast-feeding. Their agenda is not to blatantly expose themselves to other patrons over a bowl of soup, but to come together for some light-hearted socializing, discrete nursing and a meal.

On this Saturday, the ladies were at Rock Hill Bakehouse in Glens Falls, one of three area restaurants that have signed on to host Breastfeeding Cafes. The restaurants' managers have agreed to support a woman's right to breast-feed in public, not the bathroom, and this support is illustrated by a "Breastfeeding Welcome Here" sticker on the front door. Café Sarah in North Creek and Casey's North in North Creek also host cafes.

"Our culture has a long way to go to accept breast-feeding," said Mary Maley, reaching over the head of her nursing son to pick up her sandwich.

This being Maley's fourth child, she is an expert at nursing in public so discretely people often don't even realize she's doing it. But it takes practice to get confident at nursing, Maley said.

Despite what people think, nursing isn't something women just know instinctively how to do. It can be a challenge, and new mothers especially need support, which is where The Breastfeeding Café comes in.

Seeing the breast-feeding sticker on the door at Rock Hill Bakehouse put new mom Nellie Lovenduski of Wilton at ease.

"Just seeing that sign, I felt more confident and comfortable, and it made my mom more comfortable," said Lovenduski, who has a 4-month-old son. She said her mother breast-fed her, but rarely strayed from home because of the perception that breast-feeding in public was improper.

Lovenduski said having the support of others, especially her husband, has helped her feel confident enough to leave home with the baby.

At the end of each café, a door prize is given out. The prize is usually a copy of the book, "The Breastfeeding Café" by Barbara Behrmann, which encourages women to create a community around their breast-feeding experience.

It was Behrmann's book that planted the idea for the local monthly lunch date for nursing moms. The local cafés are sponsored by the Adirondack Council for Birthing Women, which has received a grant to help start cafes throughout the area.

The more people see moms nursing, the more normal and acceptable it becomes, said Liz Wilcox of South Glens Falls, who was at the café with her 5-month-old daughter. She told the group she recently saw her 9-year-old niece holding her baby dolls up to her shirt trying to nurse her doll. The story sent the table of ladies into a frenzy.

"Oh yeah! Yeah! It is modeling from one generation to the next," said Joyce Vanselow, a child birth educator with the group.

To many kids, however, nursing is foreign. Lovenduski realized this in the waiting room of the pediatrician's office when her 4-month-old grew hungry. As she nursed, another child in the waiting room asked her what she was doing.

"I'm feeding my baby," Lovenduski said.

The child looked confused. "Are you feeding him crackers?" he asked.

For more information on the next Breastfeeding Café and other programs offered by the Adirondack Council for Birthing Women, call 798-6574 or visit www.adkbirths.com.