At the start of this year Rachel Papantonakis conceived the idea of the Great Nurse-In, the plan was for breastfeeding mums and their supporters to gather at the National Mall, Washington DC on August 4th. The plan came about as a response to a series of public incidents where breastfeeding mamas had been asked to stop feeding or move. Rachel Papantonakis did not want this to be a pro-breastfeeding rally so much as women coming together with an aim to “demystify breastfeeding and …be able to do so with as few barriers as possible”. The Great Nurse-In was timetabled to coincide with World Breastfeeding Week which runs from 1st-7th August each year.

So what happened on Saturday 4th August? Here are some of the photos from the Great Nurse-in Facebook page.

There were an estimated 600 people breastfeeding and/or showing their support for breastfeeding in public on the West Lawn of the Capitol Building in DC, and comments on the Facebook page are very complementary about the organisation and atmosphere of the event. There is talk of it becoming an annual event, although hopefully we’ll not need to hold such events in the future as attitudes change and women feel comfortable breastfeeding in public, but as a step towards demystifying breastfeeding it looks like the Great Nurse-In can definitely be declared a success.