"Nurse-Ins" Planned for Target Stores Across Country

By Chuck Sudo in News on Dec 28, 2011 3:25PM

Late last month Michelle Hickman, a Houston-area woman was harassed by employees at a Target store where she was shopping for Christmas gifts because she decided to breast-feed her baby in a quiet part of the store. Target permits breastfeeding in its stores, but that didn't stop a guest relations representative and her supervisor of accusing Hickman of "flaunting it."

Hickman related her account of the experience to the Best for Babes Foundation website.

"The lady (I wish I would have gotten her name) told me that she and Target were aware of our legal rights as nursing mothers, but that Target has different policies because they are a family friendly public place. I can’t think of a more family friendly act than breastfeeding and providing the irrefutably proven healthiest diet to my baby. She continued to inform me repeatedly that Target’s policies were different than the law and even went as far to say several times that just because it is a woman’s right to nurse in public even without a nursing cover like I was using doesn’t mean women should walk around “flaunting it” and was extremely rude."

This isn't the first time Target has gone against its stated policy. Similar incidents have occurred in Minneapolis in 2006, and two years ago in Michigan. Part of the disconnect is the continued focus in this country toward bottle feeding and on breasts being only about sex. Nursing mothers have also squared off against Facebook over whether they could upload photos of them nursing their babies to the social networking site.

Best for Babes even offered to help Target refine its policy and help with employee awareness to the company's policy on breastfeeding, to no avail.

All of this means that today's "nurse-in" at Target stores across the country is a go. In Chicago, a Nurse-in is planned at the Target Superstore at 2656 N. Elston Ave. The store is reported to be in support of this.