Washington’s American University has announced that it will not change or create any new policies pertaining to breast feeding because of the controversy created by one if its professors who breast fed her baby while a class was in session.
The school said that it does not have any specific policy that governs breast feeding, but it follows the guidelines of Washington D.C. and the federal government. Neither one of them allows nor prohibits breast-feeding in specific environments.
The college said in a statement that it supported its staff and faculty as they were faced with balancing personal and professional life and provided break times that were reasonable in a private area for nursing and expressing milk.
A controversy started recently when Adrienne Pine a professor at AU had a sick baby with a fever on her first day of classes. She said cancelling her first class was not an option in her mind and her friend suggested taking her baby to class. Pine, who is single, weighed her options and decided to take her daughter to class.
At one point in her lectures, Pine nursed her baby while continuing with her lecture. The school paper contacted her the following day and wanted to do a story about her nursing in class.
She did not figure the event to be newsworthy, as she thought she just had a baby who was sick and she needed to be cared for by her and not at her daycare.
