Mother Asks Fair to Clarify Nursing Rules : Infants: A woman was ordered to stop breast-feeding her baby in the Youth Building. Officials blame ‘miscommunication.’

A Ventura mother who was ordered to stop breast-feeding her baby inside the Youth Building at the Ventura County Fair says the fair needs to clarify its policies on nursing infants.

Julianna Krolak said she did not think that it was a problem to discreetly breast-feed her baby in public inside the Youth Building while her 4-year-old son and other children were playing nearby.

“I couldn’t imagine hiding away in a bathroom to nurse my child,” she said. “After all, we don’t go and hide when it’s time to eat.”

But one fair volunteer did not agree.

Shortly after Krolak began nursing her 8-month-old son last week, a volunteer worker at the building asked her to “do that somewhere else” because there were children around, she said. “It was really strange,” said Krolak, 31. “No one has ever treated me like that before. . . . Why do I have to be sequestered and shunned, as if what I was doing was shameful?”

Teri Raley, a publicist for the fair, said “there must have been a miscommunication” between Krolak and the fair worker, whose name was not disclosed.

“It’s certainly not illegal,” Raley said. She said women are not specifically prohibited from breast-feeding their babies at the public facility but added that fair officials have never been confronted with the issue before.

Krolak and her husband, Andrew Hicks, said Wednesday that they are asking fair officials to come up with a clear policy allowing nursing mothers to breast-feed their babies anywhere they want on the grounds.

The mother also suggested that perhaps “No Nursing” signs similar to those that bar smoking should be posted to stop any future confusion.

“If I could stop one other woman from going through this, then I’ve accomplished what I set out to do,” Krolak said. “It’s OK for the goats and the pigs to nurse their babies, but it’s not OK for human moms. That’s not right.”

Her husband added: “Our society is so set in its ways that when you see a breast used for what it’s meant to be used for, people reject the beauty of the situation.”

Judy Nigh, the superintendent of the Youth Building, declined to comment on the matter Wednesday, saying she was not present when Krolak was asked to leave.

“I don’t have a statement on that,” Nigh said.

Krolak said she had thought that the Youth Building was an ideal place to feed her baby, Raphael. At the same time, she said, she could easily watch her 4-year-old son, Brendan, who was playing in the General Store.

She said she was wearing a large sweater and had draped a blanket over her son, making it difficult for nearby children to see what she was doing.

Krolak said she ended up feeding the baby in the bleachers of the fair’s arena while watching the Alaskan pig races.

“No one was paying attention to me anyway,” she said.