Rolly: Guns vs. breasts: Which wins in Utah?

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

One wonders what the reaction would have been had the teacher at Westbrook Elementary School, who inadvertently shot herself in the leg, accidentally exposed her breast instead.

I bring up the question because of a recently released study on breastfeeding that shows women in the Mountain West believe in breastfeeding more than other regions in the U.S., but are most afraid to breastfeed in public.

After the teacher shot herself in the leg, sustaining a superficial wound, the school's principal said in a blog she shared the concerns of parents, but banning guns from schools is prohibited by state law. She suggested taking the issue up with the Legislature, which has created one of the most gun-friendly environments in the country.

Utah law also explicitly states that women have a right to breastfeed in public, but there is little consequence for those who stop a woman from feeding her baby at the breast, so women who breastfeed in public still often get harassed, say local breastfeeding advocates.

The study, conducted by Lansinoh Laboratories, Inc., which produces breastfeeding accessories, surveyed 2,045 women between the ages of 18 and 40 and who were either pregant with their first child or had a child 2 or under.

It found that 95 percent of moms in the Mounain West believe that "breast is best" when it comes to feeding babies. That compares to 93 percent nationally.

Ninety-three percent of Mountain West moms who chose to breastfeed say they do so for the health benefits to the baby. That compares to 86 percent nationally.

But only 54 percent of the Mounain West moms said breastfeeding in public is perfectly natural, compared to 57 percent nationally. And the Mountain West was the only region where breastfeeding in public was considered one of the top three challenges, along with pain and waking up in the middle of the night. The top three challeges nationally were pain, learning how to breastfeed and waking up in the middle of the night.

Gina Ciagne, a certified lactation counselor who was with the Office of Women's Awareness in the Department of Health and Human Services during the George W. Bush Administration, and a co-author of the study, says the health benefits of breastfeeding for the baby and the mother are indisputible.

For the baby, she says, breastfeeding has been proven to lower the chances of diabetes, obesity, respiratory problems, ear infections, SIDS, eczema, and childhood cancers.

For the mother, it reduces the chances of breast cancer, diabetes, postpartum depression, and other kinds of cancer.

She cites the conservative culture where women are expected to behave more modestly as one reason for the discomfort levels of public breastfeeding in the Mountain West.

Meghan Reed, president of the Utah Breastfeeding Coalition, says breastfeeding women are often reprimanded, so mothers put off shopping and other errands so they won't be harassed if they must breastfeed while in public.

The organizer of the Heber Valley Farmers Market this summer complained about a breastfeeding booth that contained pictures of women breastfeeding and where women at the booth openly breastfed. The local police chief sided with the breastfeeding mothers, saying they had done nothing wrong.

In Logan, a school principal got in trouble with breastfeeding advocates when he sent a note to a woman taking advantage of a free lunch program at the school, asking her not to breastfeed her baby in public view.

Crystal Young-Otterstrom, spokeswoman for the LDS Caucus of the Utah Democratic Party, says the prevailing attitude in Utah seems to be that women are supposed to keep the thoughts of teenage boys pure by not breastfeeding in public. She says Utahns should teach their teenage sons to control their prurient thoughts.

So the elementary school principal urges parents to contact their legislator about tougher laws concerning guns at school. And breastfeeding advocates are asking legslators to put more teeth in the law that already allows public breastfeeding.

Let's see how those two issues fly in the next legislative session.