Mom Reopens Business After Breastfeeding at Work Forced Her to Close

Elise Solé
Updated
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Tanessa Holt. Photo provided by Tanessa Holt

A mother who was forced to close her food company because she breastfed on the job is now back in business after receiving an apology from the Department of Agriculture on Wednesday.

Tanessa Holt, 30, a mother of one in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, has been selling dry foods (such as pre-packed oatmeal, granola, and homemade protein bars) through her company, Food Noise, at a local farmer’s market since August. She’s also breastfeeding her 7-month-old son, so she’s been bringing him with her to work — an arrangement that’s worked nicely for both mom and baby. But on Monday, Holt received an email from a food inspector from the Department of Agriculture named Tracey Macdonald, explaining that breastfeeding was “a practice that risks contaminating food.”

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The email, provided to Yahoo Parenting by Holt, read: “I have no problem with you breast feeding at the booth, as long as there is another person (ex, an employee) that is at the booth with you, who can serve food to the customers. I would not allow you to breast feed and then serve customers throughout the day. The food safety concern is contamination of food through possible throw up and or feces coming from the baby. This would include you burping the baby after nursing or you having to change the infants diaper between serving customers.”

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In response, Holt tells Yahoo Parenting, “I understand that she was just trying to do her job, but the email made me defensive. I can’t afford to pay a second worker, nor do I want to.” What’s more, Holt is food-safety-certified, has a hand-washing station behind her counter, and wears gloves when not handling prepackaged foods. “I also wear a nursing cover and a receiving blanket when I nurse,” she says. “I wasn’t going to change my business model to accommodate these requirements, so I decided to take my business elsewhere.”

On Tuesday, she posted a message on her Facebook page explaining her decision to close up shop: “I have branded my business closely as part of the local market for all of the goodness that it stands for. But I am no longer able to take part. This deeply sadness me.”

Holt was also told in a follow-up conversation with Macdonald that nursing even once at the booth would disqualify her from handling food, no matter how many times Holt washed her hands. But Barry MacGregor, director of food protection at the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture, disagreed. “The email to Tanessa Holt could have been worded better,” he tells Yahoo Parenting. “The idea that Holt can’t breastfeed and also operate a food establishment is ridiculous. Breastfeeding requires proper hand hygiene upon returning to work, just like any other activity.” 

On Wednesday, MacGregor called Holt to apologize, saying she was welcome to breastfeed at the market as long as she followed hand-washing protocol. Holt is now back at work.

In most states, women are allowed to breastfeed anywhere they are legally allowed to be. Still, that doesn’t stop many from being bullied for nursing in public. In January, staff at a Maryland casino told a mother named Alanna Panas to leave the property because her baby (who Panas was nursing in the lobby) was a “security threat”; in October, a woman named Erin Peña was asked to leave her OB/GYN office at University Medical Center (UMC) in Texas for nursing her baby, a request that Peña’s own doctor supported. After the mother’s story went viral, UMC issued an apology.

And in August, after spending more than $700 at a Beverly Hills based Anthropologie store, a mother named Ingrid Wiese-Hesson sat in the store to nurse. She was promptly escorted to the ladies’ room and asked to finish feeding her infant on the only seat available: The toilet.

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