On Facebook, the rant of this American mom has already been shared more than 4,600 times. On April 20, Jessica Coakley Martinez was detained by the security service at Heathrow Airport, near London (United Kingdom). The reason ? His luggage contained more than 100 ml of liquid, the limit set on board planes For safety reasons.
As a result, the young woman was forced to throw in the trash … 15 liters of breast milk. “My job requires that I travel a lot”, she explains in a (long) Facebook post, titled “An open letter to the security service at Heathrow Airport, Terminal 5” and published on April 23. “But I am also a mother, and I want the best for my little 8 month old baby: so I have decided to feed him exclusively at breastmilk until his first birthday. To do this, I pump my milk as soon as I can (sometimes in the middle of the night, often between two meetings), and I freeze it to bring it back to her. This time I had 15 liters in my suitcase. “
“You humiliated me and you deprived my son of breast milk”
“They weren’t about perfume bottles. It was not about detergent or explosive liquid: just breast milk. In all the airports I have been to, I have never had the slightest problem with this. Except with you. Because of you, I threw away 2 weeks of milk. Of course, I recognize a part of the responsibility in this mess: you do not allow the transport of breast milk when the mother is not traveling with the child – which I was. However, two-thirds of my milk was frozen – rock hard. But you just told me ‘it’s the law’, and you threw it all away. You humiliated me and deprived my son of breast milk. “
As a reminder, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), breast milk is the only drink perfectly suited to the needs of babies. With 670 Kcal per 1 liter, it is less rich in protein than cow milk, therefore facilitates digestion. Very rich in lactose, it participates in the proper functioning of the child’s brain (by contributing to the synthesis of myelin, the fatty membrane that isolates each nerve in the brain and spinal cord) as well as in the development of its intestinal flora. Finally, breast milk is also a good source of iron, zinc, vitamin E and calcium, which are essential for growth.
