Mum Heather Jones did her best to prepare for taking a plane from Denver in Colorado to Los Angeles with a three-month-old baby.
It was her first time flying with baby Amelia and she didn’t have anyone to help her. She decided to bring along a bottle of freshly pumped breast milk and a bottle of frozen breastmilk so she would have options for feeding.
She explains in a Facebook post: “Amelia can be a bit picky about breastfeeding, so I figured I'd have both options for the flight.”
When she reached security, there were delays ahead. “Getting through security turned out to take much longer than expected, with a heart attack shutting down one lane and a wedged car seat shutting down another. Amelia was definitely getting hungry and fussy,” Heather wrote.
After walking through security, Heather was beckoned to another area by TSA agents who told her they needed to recheck her items.
Heather thought her bottle of frozen breastmilk might be the issue but TSA cleared that. Instead, they scrutinised her bottle of fresh breastmilk while poor little Amelia grew hungrier and hungrier.
Heather offered to feed Amelia the bottle of fresh milk but instead, the TSA agents put it through a machine where somehow it tested positive for explosives!
Poor Heather found herself surrounded by six TSA agents and was told to place Amelia back in her stroller.
While Heather endured a pat-down from an agent, Amelia screamed her head off in distress.
Eventually, the TSA agents allowed her to go but forced her to dump the bottle of breastmilk. By this time, Amelia was in desperate need of her next feed.
“I grabbed my stuff and walked over to the nearest place to sit, Amelia screaming the whole time. Finally, able to feed her, we sat and I calmed down some. Then a TSA agent came up to me and asked if he could find me a cover while I breastfed.
" ‘No thanks’, I told him. He tried to argue, but I said ‘She doesn't like having her head covered while feeding. Besides, she's almost done.’ "
Thankfully Heather’s journey was uneventful from then on and on arrival at LAX she found a nice nursing room to feed Amelia again.
She says: “I've read so many stories of other women having issues, and really never thought I'd end up having such a hard time myself. Thank you, TSA, for an experience I'll never forget!"
