A 26-year-old mom who was told not to breastfeed inside a dress shop at Fairview Mall Friday said she won’t file an official complaint but is hoping to use the incident to raise awareness about a woman’s right to nurse.

Jacky Odish was at a dress shop at the mall Friday morning when her 11-month old daughter started to cry. The new mom asked an employee at the store if she could breastfeed her baby. When the woman said no, Odish suggested she do it in the change room, even though the store was empty at the time. Once again, she was told not to.

“For me, it’s more about the fact that she’s hungry at the moment. It’s stressful travelling with a kid, having to feed and change her,” Odish told CP24.com. “It could have taken two minutes behind a closed door. No one was in the store.”

Odish was so upset, she told the woman she would no longer be shopping there and took to Facebook to express her frustration.

Her post quickly garnered more than 100 comments from other moms expressing their sympathy. Some suggested she take the matter up with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, while others vowed to boycott the shop and hold a nurse-in with other breastfeeding moms at the store.

While Ontario’s laws protect a woman’s right to breastfeed in public, Odish said she won’t officially claim a human rights violation.

“I’d rather someone be taught something than having her fired,” she said. “I don’t want to take that route.”

When contacted by CP24, the employee at the dress shop said she didn’t know the rules around breastfeeding and was simply trying to suggest a more comfortable alternative for the customer and prevent any damage to expensive merchandise.

She said she advised Odish that there were cameras around the store so that she may not feel comfortable breastfeeding. She also told her the fitting room was too small and suggested she breastfeed instead at a nursing station located elsewhere in the mall.

After receiving a number of calls from upset mothers who heard about the incident, the employee contacted Odish to profusely apologize and again, explain she didn’t know the rules around breastfeeding.

“She absolutely had no idea,” Odish said. “She called me to apologize and I accepted her apology.”

A supervisor with Fairview Mall guest services also contacted her to apologize and assure her they would be speaking with the owners of the store.

Meanwhile, breastfeeding advocates say despite the best efforts of health officials in the city and province, some still consider the feeding method taboo.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission is explicitly clear on the matter, saying “You have rights as a breastfeeding mother, including the right to breastfeed a child in a public area. No one should prevent you from breastfeeding your child simply because you are in a public area. They should not ask you to “cover up,” disturb you or ask you to move to another area that is more “discreet”.”

Dr. Jack Newman, a Canadian physician who opened the country’s first hospital breastfeeding clinic in 1984, said he’s found some people have “very strange opinions about breastfeeding.”

“It’s progressive in certain places and not so progressive in others,” he said, adding that in many cases, it’s the mothers who feel uncomfortable about nursing in public because they fear people’s reactions.

“It’s too bad, because if mothers felt at ease about breastfeeding in public then others would see it differently too.”

Newman said the more publicity there is about breastfeeding rights the better.

“Dufferin Mall used to have a sign up about a breastfeeding room but I think the sign should say feel free to breastfeed anywhere but if you want some privacy then please use the room,” he said.

“Moms need to know it’s ok and they have the law on their side,” he continued. “I’m aware of one case where a restaurant told a mother to either go to the bathroom or to leave the restaurant. The owner faced a hefty fine.”

Odish said today’s incident is the first time she was ever made to feel uncomfortable about breastfeeding.

“It kind of left me feeling hurt by it,” she said. “It came as kind of a shock.”