Visitors streaming into Elitch Gardens on Saturday respectfully observed, as some expressed support for, four breast-feeding women cradling their children outside the gates of the amusement park.
“I’m not disturbed in any way if women do that,” said Stefan Kuhn, a banker from eastern Switzerland. “It is basically a natural thing and if they want to try it, they can. If the baby’s hungry, the baby’s hungry.”
The “nurse-in” protest was planned after a South Dakota woman, Kristin Skrydlak-simlai, posted an e-mail on in which she claimed she was harassed last week while she nursed her 5-month-old son by the side of the wave pool.
She said she was harassed by two Elitch security guards, a supervisor and eventually two Denver police officers. They claimed people were complaining about her public breast-feeding and she needed to cover up or go somewhere else – such as a restroom – to nurse. She said they left her scared and shaking and her baby screaming, even though she pointed out that Colorado law allows nursing women to breast-feed anywhere.
“We did not harass her. We apologize if she felt harassed,” said Lori Kaupp, Elitch’s director of operations. “Women can breast-feed wherever they chose to do it.”
The eight women protesting Saturday sat quietly on a flower garden retaining wall. They said mother’s milk is the healthiest nourishment for a baby and that U.S. culture has denigrated nursing.
“We have made the breast into something obscene. It has been made into something sexual, something of a sexual nature,” said Danae Meurer, as she nursed her 4-month-old daughter, Zehana. “It has another function – to feed a child.”
Meurer, of Denver, said she wasn’t surprised to hear that some Elitch patrons complained about Skrydlak simlai. She has experienced similar reactions.
Beth Turner, who was nursing her 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Sofia, said her daughter’s and her own health are the primary reason she breast-feeds.
The Colorado Breast-feeding Task Force plans a “nurse-in” June 24 to attempt to set the “national breast-feeding record” during a four-hour marathon on the Auraria campus.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
