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Shanna Flowers is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.

Shanna Flowers

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When it comes to breast-feeding, I'm in league with a quiet sect of men -- and women:

It grosses me out.

Not the idea of mothers bonding with their babies and providing them nutrition and other natural goodies for healthy, growing bodies. But the act of them doing so, anywhere in my visual range.

I am not a mother, I've never nursed, and I've never jumped out of bed for a 3 a.m. feeding.

With that full disclosure, my gender as well as my professional (if not maternal) instincts entitle me to weigh in on the so-called breast-feeding dilemma of a mother attending Harvard Medical School.

The details of the case are as follows:

Sophie Currier, who already has a Ph.D. from Harvard, sued the National Board of Medical Examiners so she could get extra break time during her daylong medical licensing exam to pump breast milk.

A judge ordered the medical board, which administers the test, to add 60 minutes of break time to the standard 45 minutes of allotted breaks for Currier during the nine-hour test.

Let me stop and say I applaud the fact that she breast-feeds her child.

But a couple of things bother me about the 33-year-old mother of two, who was scheduled to take the exam Wednesday and today.

Why not take the test at another time if it interferes with nursing her 4-month-old daughter?

A spokeswoman for the exam board told The Boston Globe that scheduling is very flexible.

Currier rejected that idea. She's behind schedule because she failed the test this spring when she was eight months pregnant.

More than anything, though, Currier seems to be milking her situation a bit. She's not the ideal poster child for a woman's right to nurse.

The board already has allotted Currier two days instead of one to complete the test because she has dyslexia and attention deficit disorder.

An extra day, she said, doubled her breast-feeding problems.

Before Currier sued the board, exam officials refused to give her extra break time to pump her milk, saying the test provides special accommodations only for disabilities covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Currier countered that though breast-feeding wasn't a disability, it is physically taxing.

"What am I going to do, express milk all over your computer?" she asked a board official.

I could have done without the imagery.

A judge agreed with her and ruled that she needed the extra time to be on "equal footing" with male and non-lactating female test takers.

Otherwise, the judge said, Currier would have to either "use her break time to incompletely express breast milk and ignore her bodily functions, or abdicate her decision to express breast milk, resulting in significant pain."

To make sense of Currier's case, I consulted with two Roanoke experts.

Tammy Braaten, 34, breast-fed all four of her children -- ages 4, 5, 7 and 8, and is a local La Leche League leader; and Terrisa Vaughn, 30, breast-fed the younger two of her three boys, ages 6, 2 and 1.

"Here is a breast-feeding mom that needs extra time to provide milk for her baby," Tammy said firmly.

She noted that some women express milk more slowly than others.

"That is a legitimate thing," Tammy said. "There are some women who can pump a ton of milk in five minutes."

Others, she shared, say, "I'm pumping and I'm pumping and I'm not getting any milk."

My friend, Terrisa, said Currier "did seem like she was kind of trying to get everything she can get. From the other perspective," Terrisa quickly added, "I know how it is to be full. It's painful."

She doesn't know Tammy but agreed that women pump milk at different rates.

Pumps are different and affect the amount of milk and the speed at which it is expressed, Terrisa said.

I had to come clean with my friend and admit to her that when she breast-fed in my presence it "freaked me out."

That's OK, she said in her calm tone.

"I used to feel the same way. It kind of freaked me out ... until I started."