Breastfeeding mums stage protest against abusive waitress

Kelly Schaecher was subjected to some truly nasty abuse from a waitress when breastfeeding her baby in a café.

The 28-year-old was told if she wanted to feed her baby she would have to sit in the corner. Then when Kelly left the café the waitress drove past her in her car, screaming out of the window, “Don't you ever come back to my café with your t*** out again”.

The word about what happened to Kelly spread and soon breastfeeding mums were plotting on Facebook. Over 200 of them decided to stage a sit-in protest at the café in Bristol to show their outrage about how Kelly was treated.

Both the public and the police cheered and supported them as they made their way through the streets of the city waving placards, before finally taking their seats in the café and breastfeeding en masse.

The café owner himself was very apologetic about his waitress' behaviour and gave everyone at the protest free tea and cakes.

He said it was not café policy to make breastfeeding mothers sit in the corner and he has now placed a sign in the café window which reads 'breastfeeding mothers welcome'.

I can only congratulate this group of mothers for drawing the public's attention to the waitress' actions.

Breastfeeding in public may not be to everyone's taste but it is so important that mothers who choose to do so feel comfortable enough to feed their babies whilst out and about.

Too many mums are turning their back on the best and most natural way of feeding their babies and one of the main motivations has to be that they do not want to have to publicly breastfeed.

It is vital therefore that the public's attitude to this most natural act is one of acceptance to stop even more mothers from being put off breastfeeding and using bottles instead.

What this story has also shown is what a strong-minded and dogged group breastfeeding mothers are. They have to be in order to continue breastfeeding their babies in the face of such adversity. The waitress at this café obviously completely underestimated the character of these mums as she had no idea what was set to descend upon her. Let's hope it has made her think about her actions.