Breast-feeding soldiers photo goes viral

A photo of 10 active-duty female soldiers in uniform breast-feeding has gone viral after the photographer posted it on her Facebook page.

“Seeing a picture like that helps mothers understand they can be an active soldier and provide support to their children,” photographer Tara Ruby told CNN on Monday.

{mosads}Ruby took the photo as a part of an effort to help decorate a new nursing room at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.

Ruby, who served in the Air Force from 1997 to 2001, told CNN she remembers having to slip into empty offices or bathrooms to find privacy to breast pump.

The new room for nursing mothers has chairs, a refrigerator to store milk and a sink. With no décor on the walls, Ruby offered to donate photos for the room.

She looked for volunteers through Fort Bliss’s support group for mothers, thinking she would get two or three, she said.

On Thursday, Ruby posted the photo on Facebook, but it had been taken down by Friday morning.

She reposted it, and as of Monday afternoon, it has gotten more than 11,000 likes and been shared more than 8,000 times.

While some commentators called the photo “unprofessional,” an Army spokesman told CNN there’s no policy against breast-feeding in uniform so long as soldiers “maintain professional standards.”