Judge orders new breastfeeding schedule

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TORONTO, April 27 (UPI) -- A Canadian judge in Toronto has ruled a mother is using her breastfeeding schedule to restrict access to her 29-month-old daughter by her natural father.

The court heard the child was born in June 2006 after Carl Cavannah, 42, and Jennifer Johne, 35, had a brief affair, the Globe and Mail reported Monday.

Justice Alan Ingram said the father has shown every interest in being a good parent and had taken courses and quit his job to move closer to the child. However, Johne was limiting the time Cavannah could spend with his daughter because of her insistence the child be breastfed, the report said.

By law, a mother and father are equally entitled to custody of a child, and the judge said Johne needed to recognize that.

"Jen has been unwilling to give a timetable as to when the breastfeeding will end," the judge wrote in an eight-page ruling. "But now the time has come for Jen to have greater consideration for the relationship between the child and Carl. If she used a breast pump and provided the milk to Carl, he would be willing to give it to (the child)."

Johne's lawyer told the Globe her client is considering an appeal.