A FIRST-TIME mum has spoken of the humiliation she suffered after restaurant staff asked her to cover up while breastfeeding her premature baby.
Elizabeth Herzog spoke to American TV channel WQAD [via The Mirror] about her experience, which will be a familiar one to women on either side of the Atlantic.
Elizabeth’s daughter Georgia was born just five months ago, weighing just 3.5Ibs.
Premature at 32 weeks, she remains fragile even now and required extra care and attention from her mother.
It amounts to an exhausting experience and one with little in the way of a let up.
So, when Elizabeth took Georgia to a local restaurant Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews in Iowa for some food with her extended family, she was obviously hoping for a modicum of respite.
Instead, she found herself being tapped on the shoulder by the manager of the restaurant, while she was breastfeeding Georgia, who asked her to “cover up a little bit”.
Speaking to WQAD, Elizabeth explained that she doesn’t like covering Georgia’s head while breastfeeding because of how fragile she is.
"It doesn't seem like that big of a task but especially for her, I worry... I worry a lot because you can't see her face,” she said.
Though she ended up leaving the restaurant feeling “embarrassed and humiliated” by the request, Elizabeth nevertheless plucked up the courage to go over to the manager and inform him that under Iowa state law she can breastfeed in public.
The law states:"A woman may breastfeed the woman’s own child in any public place where the woman’s presence is otherwise authorized."
Elizabeth's experience comes just months after a customer at a restaurant in Sharonville, USA, called the police because they were so upset by a fellow diner breastfeeding.
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