Breastfeeding Mums Had To Pump In The Toilets At The Oscars
Tom Hardy’s wife, Charlotte Riley, was forced to breast-pump in the toilet at the Oscars {Photo: Rex Features]
While Hollywood’s finest were busy sipping champers and swapping anecdotes at last Sunday’s Oscars, Tom Hardy was pacing outside the ladies loos waiting patiently for his wife, Charlotte Riley, to finish pumping her breasts.
“I’m just waiting for my wife to finish breast-pumping in the bathroom,” Hardy explained to a reporter from the Los Angeles Times, when asked why he was spending so much time in the Awards’ lobby. “She has to do it every hour.”
While it’s easy to chalk this up as a sweet anecdote of a devoted dad and husband, albeit a very famous one, let’s just think about that for a minute. In the absence of a dedicated nursing room, the wife of an A-list actor, herself a successful actress, was force to pump milk in the loo?! Er, what?
The fact that organisers of the world’s most celebrated Awards ceremony, couldn’t find it in them to properly cater for its breastfeeding stars, possibly speaks volumes about how nursing mums are treated by society in general.
Pumping your breasts is difficult enough without being forced to do so in a public toilet [Photo: Rex Features]
As any new mum will tell you, there’s nothing glamorous about pumping. It’s time-consuming, often inconvenient (imagine how much of a pain it was for Tom Hardy’s wife to keep hoiking down her floor-length frock) and sometimes a little embarrassing (have you ever heard the noise a breast pump makes?). So being made to pump in a public toilet just ramps up the difficulties. And that’s before we’ve even discussed the sanitation factor.
This isn’t the first year that the Awards do planners have overlooked the needs of new mums. In 2013, Adele revealed that — along with a number of other female stars — she was running to the bathroom between awards to pump-and-dump. “All these Hollywood superstars, lined up and breast-feeding in the ladies,” she said during an interview with The Guardian.
Breast pumping facilities have been called into question by some mums [Photo: Rex Features]
And it’s not just celebrities who are disillusioned with the facilities offered for breastfeeding mums. An annual global survey of 13,348 mums by leading breastfeeding and baby products brand Lansinoh has revealed a quarter of mums think the government need to offer more support. While an alternative survey by the Economic and Social Research Council found that better breastfeeding facilities in the workplace would encourage mothers to return to work sooner and breastfeed for longer.
Interestingly, in the US Federal Law for Workers actually requires the provision of a room other than a bathroom for mothers who want to breastfeed or pump. So Oscar organisers take note for next year, or you might just have another diversity row on your hands.
Do you think better facilities should be provided for breastfeeding mothers? Let us know @YahooStyleUK
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