Don’t Ask A Pregnant Acquaintance If She Plans On Breastfeeding

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I was told when I got pregnant that once you go into labor, you lose all modesty. I found it hard to believe that I would be okay with people seeing me completely naked and looking directly into my asshole while I pushed, but, hey, what do you know? “They” were right.

Before I lost my precious modesty during labor, I felt very protective of my privacy while I was pregnant. I was always caught off guard and embarrassed when people asked me a seemingly innocent question as they tried to make small talk about my pregnancy:

Are you planning to breastfeed?

I think people ask this question when they run out of things to say. How far along are you? Did you find out if it was a girl or boy? Are you excited? ”¦awkward silence”¦ Are you going to breastfeed?

I can’t fault people for trying to make conversation and feign some sort of interest in pregnancy. I just can’t get over how weird it felt to have near-strangers talk about my breasts as they congratulated me on my pregnancy.

After I had a baby, breasts were totally whatevs. I never got comfortable breastfeeding in public because I would just pump milk and bring it with me. But I had many more people than normal see my breasts as a new mom, and I realized that my milk bags were no big deal.

But while I was still pregnant with my first son, talk of breasts weirded me out. I felt like a high school girl because I wanted to giggle and run away at the same time. I know that breastfeeding is different from breasts in the sexual sense, but I wasn’t automatically comfortable with strangers talking about my body.

I’m not trying to make any hard and fast rules about what not to say to a pregnant lady because everyone is different. I will say that if you don’t know a person well, save the breastfeeding question for later. Breastfeeding as a topic of conversation is merely polite, but it’s not that important. Smile, nod, and tell her she looks beautiful. Leave her breasts out of it.

(Image: Aletia/Shutterstock)

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