Woman Kicked Off Bus For Breastfeeding

A woman was forced to walk a mile home after a bus driver kicked her off a public bus because she was breastfeeding her six-week-old baby.

Lauren McKenna, 22, of in Manchester, northern England, says:

"I got on a 216 at Piccadilly Gardens and sat down in my normal seat at the front with my pram. I started to feed D'Marion and like normal I lifted up my jumper, pulled my tee shirt down and put a blanket over his head so nobody could see anything. I noticed the driver kept looking in his mirror at me and turning around and when we got to Ancoats he stopped and said: "Are you breastfeeding?" When I said yes he said 'You can't do that on here.' He said you can either 'put them away', which didn't make sense because he couldn't see anything, or 'get off the bus.' I was fuming so I got off the bus and called Stagecoach to complain but the lady on the other end of the phone said: 'Well you shouldn't be doing it on a bus should you?' I was stunned and walked home. I'm going to write to them and I'm not going to get on another Stagecoach bus until they apologize. They bang on about breastfeeding and nag you to do it all your way through pregnancy like it can stop wars in the Middle East or something. I want what's best for my son so I do it, even though not many people my age do. I asked the nurses if it was OK to do it in public and they said it was. I even went on the internet because at first I did feel a bit funny about it. It said that you can. I've done it in a few places and have even had old ladies coming up to me and saying 'well done love'. But this has just left me fuming."

Breastfeeding in public is legal in Britain and Lauren plans to sue the bus company for the public embarrassment they caused.

Last March, another breast-feeding mom claimed she was thrown off a bus after a passenger complaint about her "indecent exposure." But, after reviewing CCTV footage, the bus operator said it could find no evidence of the incident and accused her of making the story up.



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