 Judge bans mother from breastfeeding 11-month-old son because she got a tattoo 
 
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 A judge has banned a mother from breastfeeding because she got a tattoo, ruling the woman's decision to get it four weeks earlier exposed her 11-month-old baby to an unacceptable risk of harm. Federal Circuit Court Judge Matthew Myers' decision to grant an injunction to stop the woman from breastfeeding her son comes despite the mother recording negative results on hepatitis and HIV tests. In making the ruling, Judge Myers relied on material published by the Australian Breastfeeding Association. Does that mean that women who expose themselves to any sort of risks around the contraction of a blood-borne virus... shouldn't be allowed to breastfeed? He also said it was "disappointing" that the mother had smoked cannabis on May 22 while she was breastfeeding. A full bench of the Family Court has agreed to hear an urgent appeal against the ruling in Sydney on Friday.
– The mother of an 11-month-old baby in Australia can once again breastfeed her child, but it took the intervention of a court. Sydney's Family Court today overturned a previous decision barring the woman from breastfeeding because she had gotten a tattoo a month ago, reports 9 News. The earlier judge thought that put the child at risk for diseases such as HIV or hepatitis and ordered the unidentified woman to stop breastfeeding, but a Family Court judge ridiculed the decision as one that seems to have resulted purely from "surfing the Internet." The unusual case stems from a nasty custody dispute, explains the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The child's parent's aren't together, and the father complained to the court that the mother was unfit, in part because of the tattoo. The woman tested negative for any diseases, but the first judge deemed the results inconclusive. "It is the view of the court that it is not in the best interests of the child that the mother continue to breastfeed," he ruled, per the Sydney Morning Herald. The strange thing is that he cited guidelines from the Australian Breastfeeding Association, but the leader of that group thinks he overreacted. "Women do need to be careful," she says. "But it doesn't mean that you have to wrap yourself in Glad wrap." (Dad can take heart: He lost, but his kid may end up earning more in the long run.)