( 4UMF NEWS ) Professor Breast Feeds Baby During Class:
A college professor who breastfed her sick baby during class is “shocked and annoyed” that the incident has sparked debate on campus.
But critics, including some students, found the breast-feeding scenario distracting and questioned why a teacher would bring a baby to work in the first place.
Adrienne Pine, an anthropology professor at American University in Washington D.C., says she brought her sick baby daughter to class two weeks ago because she didn’t want to cancel the first lecture of “Sex, Gender, and Culture.”
During the 75 minute class, the baby “crawled on the floor of the lecture hall…the mother extracted a paper clip from the girl’s mouth…and shooed her away from an electrical outlet….when the baby grew restless, Pine breast-fed her,” The Washington Post reported.
Days later, the incident ended up in the student newspaper.
Pine, who has refused to comment to local media, wrote a blog post expressing “shock” that feeding a baby in front of a room full of 40 college students could be seen as inappropriate or unprofessional.
“I doubt anyone saw my nipple, because I’m pretty good at covering it,” Pine wrote. “I was shocked and annoyed that this would be considered newsworthy.”
After accusing the school newspaper and female reporter of having an anti-woman bias, she also asked “Do university students really need to be so mollycoddled that they should not see something I do on public transportation nearly every day?”
Pine also said she was a single mother who was unable to afford a babysitter during the lecture.
