Walmart apologises for refusing to print breastfeeding photo

Walmart has apologised to a family from Edmonton, Canada after staff at the Spruce Grove department store refused a husband's request to print a photo of his wife breastfeeding their son. The photo was deemed as nudity. Kayla Andre’s husband wanted to have a professional image of his wife breastfeeding their baby printed and framed as a Mother’s Day present.

But Andre says her husband was denied the print because staff said it violated photo policy. “When he went to go pick it up, they brought the photo out and said unfortunately, although this means a lot to you, we can’t print it for you and we cannot sell it to you,” Andre said. “He said, well why not, and they said because it’s nudity and Walmart has very strict no nudity policy.”



Andre says breastfeeding is a natural and normal part of being a mother. “It’s beautiful,” Andre said. She says staff at the Spruce Grove Walmart told her husband it was an inappropriate photo. “He replied with, it’s not nudity, it’s my wife feeding our child. And they said well if you look really closely, you can see a little bit of something there,” she said. “My photo has no sexual connotation at all and here it is getting denied.”

Walmart admits what happened was wrong. “We made a mistake. That photo should have been printed,” said Alex Roberton, a spokesperson with the company. “It’s the clarity in the policy. It’s obviously inappropriate to print certain photos so there needs to be some guidance for photo centre staff but that guidance wasn’t clear enough for them to know that those photos should have been printed from the get-go.” As for the photo, Andre’s husband ended up having it printed at an independent lab, so she still did end up receiving the print for Mother’s Day.

With news video.