Downtown Silver Spring’s property manager has been nursing relations with the community back to health after a security guard told a woman she could not breastfeed by the outdoor fountain on Ellsworth Drive this month.

Peterson Cos., the property manager for Downtown Silver Spring, has brought in the La Leche League of Silver Spring to educate the public and their staff about breastfeeding, which is legal to do in public under Maryland law and in every state in the U.S.

Two weeks ago, a woman who was breastfeeding by the fountain downtown was told by a security guard that she could not breastfeed there, said Lillian Buie, marketing director for Peterson Cos.

“I wasn’t there,” Buie said. “All I can say is there was some type of miscommunication.”

Breastfeeding in public has become a repeated issue in Downtown Silver Spring. Buie said she has received many complaints from other mothers about women breastfeeding downtown.

Buie asked La Leche League of Silver Spring, a nonprofit group that provides breastfeeding information and support to nursing mothers, to set up a table at the fountain with pamphlets and information about breastfeeding.

“After an incident like this one fortunately, I don’t think it’s very common it’s always good to have a support group of people,” said Alice Crawford, a leader with La Leche League. “That is important to a nursing mother. It is important for this to be part of their life. It’s important to know it’s not something they have to do behind closed doors.”

La Leche League passed out information Saturday and will be there again from 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday.

“Hopefully, it helped spread awareness that it’s OK for mothers to do this in public,” Crawford said. “It’s not to convince everyone that breastfeeding is the way to go. For mothers, breastfeeding is a part of a way of life and it’s important to them. In society, you have to be tolerant of different people’s way of life.”

Buie said Peterson Cos. has educated its staff on breastfeeding laws since the incident.

“We thought this would be a great opportunity to educate not only staff but the public about breastfeeding,” Buie said.

This is not the first time public breastfeeding has been an issue in Montgomery County.

Seven years ago, Lorig Charkoudian of Takoma Park organized a protest after she was told she could not breastfeed in a Starbucks on Cherry Hill Road.

After sending a letter to Starbucks management, Charkoudian staged a “nurse-in” with 30 other mothers. About 100 people attended the protest, during which the mothers breastfed their children at the coffee shop.

Although Charkoudian received a letter from Starbucks before the sit-in saying they would comply, the protest gained national attention and spurred other nurse-ins around the country.

Charkoudian said there often is a stigma surrounding breastfeeding in public, and this mentality starts a negative feedback cycle, one in which mothers are too ashamed to breastfeed outside their homes.

“There’s reasons women can’t or don’t breastfeed,” Charkoudian said. “People make the choices they make, but one of the reasons they don’t is because it becomes complicated if they feel like they have to hide it. Most people don’t think it’s a normal thing to be done in public.”

Charkoudian said public breastfeeding needs to be separated from the perception of shame society associates with it.

“The more women that breastfeed in public, the more it becomes the norm,” Charkoudian said.

ktousignant@gazette.net