What This Day Care Worker Fed Another Woman’s Baby Is So Not Okay

We never thought we’d have to say this, but here we are: it’s never okay to breastfeed another woman’s child without that mother’s consent. You may be thinking, why on earth would we ever have to say such a thing? That truly can’t be happening in the year 2019, can it? It can, and it has. During a live chat session with Slate readers, Slate’s Daniel Mallory Ortberg heard from a mother who caught her day care provider breastfeeding her kid, and wow — that is not okay!

In the transcription of the live session, the mother told those in the chat that she has recently adopted a baby, and is therefore not lactating. Being a single, working mother, she hired a day care provider who seemed “amazing” at first. The woman has two kids of her own and has been running her home day care for about five years.

“The only bump in the road was on the first day when I pulled out the formula and bottles, and she wrinkled her nose and said, ‘You feed her that slop?’ I ignored the barb (I’m used to it), gave a quick rundown, and went on my way,” the mother said.

However, that “barb” turned into something much, much worse.

Two months passed when the mother decided to pick her daughter up from the day care provider’s house early one afternoon.

“There is a side door where parents can enter without knocking, so I did that,” the mother said. “I started the sign-out process, and as I was doing so, the day care assistant walked by and saw me. She tried to engage me with conversation, but I wanted to get my daughter so I brushed by her. When I got to the area of the house where my daughter was, I about fell over.”

“The day care provider was NURSING MY BABY!” No. No! NO!

The provider’s excuse? She was “saving the baby from chemicals” the mother was “trying to force into her body.” The provider then said the mother should thank her for breastfeeding her kid all these months.

MONTHS?!

“Obviously, I am not sending my daughter back there, but should I report her to the umbrella company she is under for home day cares, or should I make a huge blast on social media?” the mother asked Ortberg.

Ortberg said what we all were thinking: “Oh my GOD. That is my first thought, is just: Oh, my GOD. If this isn’t worth reporting her to a supervising agency, I don’t know what is.”

Furthermore, Ortberg said that this is a huge “breech of trust,” and a total violation that is absolutely worth reporting. And although the mother didn’t necessarily want to make a “social media splash,” people got vocal in the Slate Facebook post about the story.

We totally agree. Not only is the action wrong, but the shame that the provider put on the mother in the first place is out of line.

For those of you thinking, “Well don’t wet nurses do just that — breastfeed someone else’s baby?” Yes, they do. But wet nursing is all about consent.

And there was certainly no consent in this scenario. That’s just wrong.

Not to mention, breastfeeding a child that is not your own could put that child in much more danger than “those chemicals” ever could. Diseases can easily spread through bodily fluids.

“If a doctor gives a person a blood transfusion without consent, it’s medical battery. If you spit on someone without permission, it is assault.”

Basically, the general consensus is that this is totally not normal, and this provider’s license should be revoked. Period.

Ugh. We feel violated for this poor mother. As horrible as it was (and still is), it’s kind of a good thing she decided to take the back entrance that day. Otherwise, who knows how long the third-party breastfeeding could have gone on for.

“This is a very dramatic case,” Ortberg responded, “and I can imagine it making a lot of headlines that you might not want to be connected with, but she should absolutely be reported for this.” We couldn’t agree more.

Yikes, yikes, and more yikes.