In India, breastfeeding in public is a taboo. Actor Dia Mirza, who’s now a proud mother to son Avyaan Azaad Rekhi, recently opened up about the stigma around it in our country, and how it triggers shame and judgement. On the occasion of the ongoing World Breastfeeding Week, the actor raised some serious concerns about how Indian women are ridiculed for feeding their newborn in public places.
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In an interview with Mid-day, the actress stressed on the many challenges around breastfeeding and how nothing has been done to improve the situation. She said, “I have become more acutely aware of the lack of safe spaces for new mothers, especially if they are socially and economically marginalised. Why have we never highlighted how hard it is for underserved mothers to feed their babies on construction sites, farms and roadside stalls without any privacy?”
Talking about how other countries are open to breastfeeding in public and how women are protected, she added, “In Belgium, breastfeeding in public is protected by law, but in India, we need to bring about a systematic shift in societal attitude. Feeding a child should be considered a natural act, but it triggers so much shame and judgment when done in public. The World Health Organisation recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months as infants who are not breastfed are six to 10 times more likely to die in the early months. Rural mothers may not have this critical piece of information. It should worry us that India continues to have one of the highest rates of malnutrition and infant mortality.”
From the Kolkata woman who was mocked by the employees of a mall for breastfeeding in public to Malayalam magazine Grihalakshmi receiving flak for featuring a model posing like she was breastfeeding a baby, a lot has been said about normalising public breastfeeding in the past decades, but has anything really been done about it?
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The sexualisation of breasts is the reason why most women have opted for formula milk in public areas to avoid the male gaze. Women are told, in fact, forced to cover up when breastfeeding regardless of whether they’re in a public or a private space. It’s sad that regardless of several campaigns urging us to reject these regressive societal norms, breastfeeding in public is still a hush-hush subject in India, and women are subjected to shame and disgrace for it.
Lead Image Credit: Dia Mirza, Instagram
