How Helpful is a Hooter Hider?

I bought my pregnant friend a nursing cover (Hooter Hider, Udder Cover...) this week.

And then I wondered if that was really helpful.

I know it will help her to hide her baby under a little curtain of cuteness while she breastfeeds, but does it help the bigger problems with breastfeeding? Problems like women being embarrassed to feed their babies in public....or the problem that the marketing of formula has made society think that breastfeeding is an exception, not the rule...or the sexualization of breasts instead of seeing them as God's intended way to feed a child.

Women should be modest when they nurse. But I hate that we live in a culture where finding ways to hide breastfeeding has become a huge business, and where women who discreetly breastfeed in public are made to feel ashamed or shunned like the recent case in Iowa, where a woman who was breastfeeding in a mall was told by a security guard she'd have to take her baby to a public restroom (gross...would you eat YOUR lunch in there?) to feed him.

CNN reported: A recent study from the journal Pediatrics found that if most new moms would breastfeed their babies for the first six months of life, it would save nearly 1,000 lives and billions of dollars each year.

When curbing health care costs is a headline in every newspaper, maybe you should be thanking a breastfeeding woman next time you see her?

How about encouraging her and finding ways to support her life-saving, money-saving choice?

And if she wants to use a Hooter Hider, that's great....but if she doesn't, that's cool too.