Breastfeeding/Nursing in Hong Kong - My Observations

In my 11 days Hong Kong (well, more accurately, 8 days in HK, 3 days in Macau), I don't think I saw anybody else nursing in public. (In fact, I didn't see many infants out in public either..., which is not to say that there are no infants in Hong Kong - there may be a many reasons why infants weren't more prevalent in HK, like the swine flu scare, cultural norms that encourage keeping babies at home and away from crowds and strangers, parents work during the day so helpers take care of children at home, I was just in all the wrong places, etc.) Like I mentioned in a previous post, Hong Kong has been trying to do a huge public awareness campaign about the benefits of nursing, and from what I heard from my "aunties" (my mom's friends), doctors are really encouraging women to breastfeed their babies.

So nursing in itself isn't shunned in Hong Kong, and from my own personal experience, neither is nursing in public, although not many women do it. Whenever I nursed in front of them, my aunties always commented about how nursing is always best for mom and baby and agreed that nursing is a lot more convenient than carrying bottles and mixing formula. Nobody seemed uncomfortable by the fact that I was nursing my baby in public (though discreetly under a Hooter Hider), and conversation simply carried on. No gawkers, no rude comments, nothing. Also, I do speak Cantonese, so I listened intently to make sure there were no rude comments about my nursing in public - and I'm happy to report that there indeed were no rude comments. So ladies, if you're used to nursing in public and are planning on visiting Hong Kong, by all means, go for it.

Now for a few tips. I was using my Hooter Hider the whole time, so I'm not sure if reactions would have been different had I not been using a nursing cover. I imagine that the reactions would have been much different, especially given that nursing in public doesn't seem to be very common. I would recommend using a nursing cover for discretion, however. In fact, when I nursed while using the cover, most people simply assumed I was trying to lull my baby to sleep or keep him asleep - not many people realized that I was nursing my child (once again, perhaps because nursing in public is so uncommon).

On the very few occasions that I was not already sitting down in a restaurant and need to nurse my son (I admit, a large chunk of my time was spent in restaurants since there's so much good food in Hong Kong!), I would just duck into a nearby cafe or fast-food restaurant that looked somewhat comfortable, would order something small to drink or munch on, and carry on with nursing. While there, I ducked into a McDonalds a couple times to nurse (and my husband ordered coffee), went to a few dessert cafes, etc. I avoided places that were really incredibly busy not only to avoid distracting my son while he was nursing, but also because I didn't want to annoy proprietors who wanted a high turnover on their tables. The great thing about Hong Kong is that there are so many restaurants - finding a somewhat comfortable place to sit and nurse and also have something appetizing to snack on is not a difficult task.

And of course, just in case, I always carried an empty bottle, some formula, and a bottle of water in my diaper bag. We never used the formula when I was present with my son because of the ease of finding a place to sit down and nurse, but bringing the formula was a good backup plan.