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Topeka — Amy Swan won't forget anytime soon the day she was berated for breast-feeding her baby in public.

Almost two years later, she recounts how she was at a Lawrence health club when she had to feed her baby. She went to its daycare area and did what women have done since the dawn of time.

But a male employee, upset because his toddler son was in the room, asked her not to nurse there anymore. It was her only such experience, but once was enough.

"I couldn't believe something so natural being treated as something that was very shameful that I should be doing in private," said Swan, 29. "I left the club in tears."

Swan's treatment was one reason she backs a bill in the Kansas Legislature making it clear that a woman can breast-feed anywhere she has a right to be.

The reaction Swan received doesn't surprise Melissa Vance, a Moorestown, N.J., lawyer who works with La Leche League International, which promotes breast-feeding worldwide.

"Sometimes it's a business owner who might be concerned that somebody might be offended and it might somehow disrupt their business," Vance said. "Our society has so sexualized breasts that some people find that exposure incidental to breast-feeding to be offensive."

While many states have laws clarifying that it's legal to publicly breast-feed, Kansas isn't among them. Although legislators are pushing a bill to join the majority, supporters, including Swan, say a reworked version passed by the House last month could create problems.

Originally, the bill said a woman may breast-feed anywhere she has a right to be, declaring it the state's policy to encourage breast-feeding because it has health benefits for mother and baby.

Before approving the bill, the House added a provision exempting nursing mothers from jury duty, something already done in seven states.

But the House also made another change. Rep. Deena Horst added the word "discreetly," so the bill reads a woman "may breast-feed discreetly in any place she has a right to be." Missouri is the only state requiring "discreet" feeding.

Horst, R-Salina, said she wasn't trying to kill the bill and wouldn't mind if "discreet" was defined in the measure.

"To me it means putting a towel or blanket over you so people won't be embarrassed," she said. "I support breast-feeding but I believe you need to use a little common sense and have other people's desires be respected."

Many supporters of the bill believe the change ruins the legislation. The Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee is to consider the bill Monday, and Chairman Jim Barnett wants to see "discreetly" dispatched.

"At this time, I would trust women to be discreet," said Barnett, R-Emporia. "It's going to be difficult to define discreet in law."

That difficulty concerns Vance.

"Breast-feeding isn't illegal in public. A lot of this legislation is to clarify that it's OK," she said. "The issue with the word discreet is you are getting back to where it becomes a subjective judgment."

Such a possibility worries Stacy Wall, who was at a Wichita museum five years ago when her newborn got hungry. She was on a bench in a secluded area, nursing, when a museum volunteer suggested she breast-feed in a restroom.

"Am I expected to sit on the toilet and nurse my child? A restroom isn't where you want to feed your children." said Wall, 31, of Lawrence.

She added: "With the word discreet in the bill, we could be asked to leave, and the right to breast-feed is taken away. I would rather have no legislation than legislation with the word discreet."

Studies say breast-feeding provides significant health benefits to both babies and mothers and that has led to more women nursing newborns.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's goal for 2010 is to have 50 percent of mothers nursing through their infants' sixth month and 25 percent through the first year.

According to the CDC, in 2003, 36 percent of mothers breast-fed through the sixth month and 17 percent, through the first year. The figures were 29 percent and 16 percent in 1998.

The trend to enact laws on breast-feeding started with Florida in 1993, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Thirty-seven states have laws either to allow breast-feeding in public, exempt breast-feeding from public indecency laws, deal with breast-feeding in the workplace, or exempt nursing mothers from jury duty. Some states use a combination of approaches.

Vance said greater legal protection lies in simply saying a woman can breast-feed wherever she has a right to be.

She said exempting breast-feeding from public lewdness laws protects women from criminal prosecution, "But a restaurant owner still might be able to ask you to leave, which he couldn't do under the public right law."

Missouri's 1999 law requires a mother to "use as much discretion as possible" when breast-feeding.

Nikki Simmons, leader of the Jefferson City, Mo., chapter of La Leche, said the law has been used in some cases to prevent mothers from breast-feeding in public or at work.

"It's still a problem from time to time, even with the law on the books," Simmons said. "I still get weekly phone calls about the workplace. The employers bring in the discreet thing, saying there is no place to do it discreetly, and that is how the law works against you."