A mum-of-one claims she was "aggressively" told "to be more discreet" while breastfeeding her baby in a café, despite the establishment having allegedly been completely empty.
Molly Musto and fiancé Thomas Veale visited Gallagher's of Barnsley on the morning of Thursday, April 20th, with their seven-week-old daughter Bobby Musto-Veale.
The new mum had previously been to the café when little Bobby was just a few days old, and it was here that she'd taken a special snap of her first time breastfeeding in public.
On this particular visit however, the 22-year-old claims the female co-owner approached her and Thomas as soon as they pushed the pram through the door café, stating that she was okay to breastfeed, as long as she was more discreet "like other mums".
Molly, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, recalled: "We opened the [café] door. Firstly, the woman asked 'how are you?' and then she said 'I need to have a word with you'. We hadn't even sat down, she came to the door. It was one of the two owners.
"I expected it to be something like 'oh, there's a bit of a food shortage'. I didn't expect it was going to be personal. She said 'you're welcome to breastfeed but you need to be more discreet about it like the other women who come here. If you can adhere to that then stay'.
"I was like 'no I'm not adhering to that'. I'm going to assume it's something like cover her head, but I don't know. She was rather confrontational about it, it left me shaken."
She continued: "As she was saying that I was angry to be honest to begin with because she's seven weeks old. If she needs feeding, she needs feeding. But I also felt uncomfortable.
"We came somewhere that we knew we wanted to sit and have food and the next minute, we felt like we had to leave. We weren't welcome."
In a Facebook review detailing her experience, self-employed rabbit bonder Molly says the family ended up leaving to find another establishment where she could feed her baby "without judgment".
For Molly, the uncomfortable confrontation felt even "worse" as it appeared this had been something the woman had been thinking about since they'd visited a month before.
According to Molly: "When she was two days old I fed her there and nothing was said and I fed her again on the six-day-old one [visit].
"We actually did our first public feed there. I was just holding her. I asked my partner to take a photo because it was the first time feeding in public and I was like 'ah I've done it'.
"Then when we came back we were stopped at the door. She'd remembered to have this chat with us regarding it despite not going for about four weeks."
She added: "The first two visits were really lovely. It was a welcoming, safe place, we'd just been to town and somewhere that we found that we liked and we were getting on with the staff.
"The majority of the time it's been empty. We were trying to support local because you know what small businesses are like at the minute, and then we end up in a chain because of what happened."
Following this alleged incident, Molly claims she's become warier when breastfeeding Bobby in public spaces, and says she won't be going back to Gallagher's of Barnsley.
Molly explained: "It's nerve-wracking breastfeeding in public especially to be told by a woman, you expect them to be a bit more understanding.
"My partner was also really shaken up - someone confronted us both about something we don't feel like we did wrong. Also, I'd not been in for a month so she'd remembered and obviously sat and thought about it, it felt very personal.
"I'm just a bit more wary when I'm feeding her of what people are thinking, a bit more worried that people are going to say stuff. I've always been so confident and just got on with it, it has knocked it [my confidence] a bit."
She revealed: "I've filed an official complaint and they've said they'll come back to me in seven days, [but] whether anything will come out of that, I don't know.
"I hope that they re-think their policy. They're lovely people, but it's just different views that are a bit old and need to be freshened up a little."
Gallagher's of Barnsley has been approached for comment.
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