Mother calls out Heathrow Airport for ‘horrible’ breastfeeding experience

Laura Holland

This is awful.

A women in the UK, Sophie McBain, has taken to Twitter to share a recent experience she had while travelling through Heathrow Airport. She began by explaining that she is currently breastfeeding her baby and needed to express milk before she got on a plane.

She sought advice from staff at the airport who told her to use the baby-changing rooms to pump milk. She was in there for about 20 minutes, without hearing any knocks on the door, when a male attendant unlocked the door and came into the room unannounced, while she was still expressing milk.

She said that he proceeded to ‘lecture her’ about how she should have left the door unlocked or should have pumped outside.

She initially wanted to share her experience in the hopes that it wouldn’t happen to other mothers, but things took an unfortunate turn when she received a less than satisfactory response from the company.

Here are her initial tweets:

Feel a bit upset @HeathrowAirport – I’m a breastfeeding mother traveling without my baby & needed to express milk. I asked staff where I could do this in private and they suggested the baby changing room. So I used it, feeling a bit bad to be occupying the room for 20mins but…

— Sophie McBain (@SEMcBain) January 21, 2018

I was really uncomfortable and needed to do this. I didn’t hear someone knock, & after they were kept waiting they asked a staff member to unlock the door for them. A male attendant came, unlocked the door and while I was still attached to a machine with my breasts out…

— Sophie McBain (@SEMcBain) January 21, 2018

He lectured me about how I should leave the door unlocked or pump outside. I felt so exposed and embarrassed. Could a female staff member not be sent? Could he not wait until I was unplugged and undressed? Can breastfeeding women not have a room to pump Undisturbed & in private?

— Sophie McBain (@SEMcBain) January 21, 2018

Then, she came back on a few days later to give an update on a letter she received from the Airport dismissing his actions as ‘common practice’ and saying it was ‘not entirely his fault’.

I told people yesterday that I wasn’t so upset about my horrible experience @HeathrowAirport, I just didn’t want other women to go through the same. But then I received this excuse-filled, non-apology to my formal complaint & I am so sad..

— Sophie McBain (@SEMcBain) January 22, 2018

To explain why I was upset I compared it to someone bursting in on your while you are on the toilet and then calmly telling you, while your pants are still round your ankles, that you are hogging the public bathroom

— Sophie McBain (@SEMcBain) January 22, 2018

Also, sticking your breasts into an electric breast pump is so undignified looking I don’t even like it when my husband sees me doing it. Why would I want strangers to see this?

— Sophie McBain (@SEMcBain) January 22, 2018

I didn’t explain that my right side, which I didn’t pump because I was too embarrassed & stressed, was so painful 5 hours into my flight that I cried with relief when the @BritishAirways cabin crew said I could use their rest area to pump

— Sophie McBain (@SEMcBain) January 22, 2018

While the whole experience was disgraceful and upsetting for Sophie, she is most upset by the letter she received from Heathrow Airport with regard to the incident.