It's probably only fair that I make my position clear from the start: I support mothers' breastfeeding and always have. I respect the right of women to feed their babies as they see fit, but for me personally there has only ever been one option. And I will be the first to admit that this has been possible only because breastfeeding has always been something that has come naturally to me. In the first few days of my eldest child's life, I thought I would never get past the pain and agony. But lashings of lanolin and patience later, I am now breastfeeding our third child.
I have never had any problems breastfeeding any of my three children in public here. I have fed them on almost every line of the MTR, on the bottom deck of the speeding No 6 bus from Stanley to Central, and in red, green and blue taxis. I don't think there is a Pacific Coffee in Central and Admiralty in which I haven't breastfed a baby. And I would like to thank the employee of a well-known clothes chain store in Central who recently let me sit among the boys' T-shirts display and feed my bawling baby.
I have never been able to organise my babies into a set feeding routine while they were being breastfed, hence the large number of sudden and sometimes unusual stops we have to make so I can sit and feed. And this is also why last week I could have been found standing in a very long line at Immigration Tower, breastfeeding my baby standing up. Not recommended. Ever. But it beats trying to calm down a hungry baby when you know there is still an hour, at least, to go before you make it to the counter. Quite a few people in the same queue seemed to find it quite amusing. I wish I could have said the same for how I felt about it, but I was pretty worn out by that point. My main aim was simply to get milk into my baby's tummy regardless of how I had to do it.
I have had old grandmothers congratulate me, and I have had more than the occasional person, be they visitor or tourist, stare. But for the most part, people don't seem to notice. I have never really had anyone blink an eyelid at my always very discreet feeding of a baby and I have never had anyone ask me to stop or leave anywhere, private or public. Sometimes I would have quite welcomed the confrontation, just for the chance to defend my right to breastfeed anywhere my hungry baby demands, but I have never had the opportunity. As with almost everything in Hong Kong, people are pretty tolerant of everything. In the same way that people with the luxury of a seat on a busy MTR train rarely notice the heavily pregnant woman dying for a seat right in front of them, so breastfeeding mothers are often thankfully ignored.
Two of our children were born in private hospitals, and one was born in a public hospital. The level of support for breastfeeding varied between the private hospitals - in one the support was fantastic; in the other it was pretty much non-existent. Our youngest was born five weeks early in a public hospital. His pre-term birth could have made breastfeeding difficult as he spent the first week of his life hooked up to a ventilator and a feeding tube. But the hospital was supportive of my need to breastfeed and did everything to make it possible.
I returned to work part time when our youngest was four months old. I made it clear to my work that I would need time and space every day to pump milk as well as somewhere to store the milk until I finished work for the morning. And they were more than happy to let me do what I needed to do. I think it was the first time they had anyone make such a request, but they were understanding and supportive, which has been great.
