A panel of judges has overturned the "unprecedented" breastfeeding ban placed on a tattooed mother who was suffering from postnatal depression.
The 20-year-old mother, known as "Ms Jackson", had been ordered by Australian Federal Court judge Matthew Myers to stop breastfeeding her 11-month-old baby, known as "X", because he said the tattoos posed an HIV or hepatitis-risk to the child.
In Sydney's Family Court on Friday, a panel of three judges overturned the ban and slammed Myers' decision for not relying on "evidentiary information" and instead seeking out breastfeeding information by "surfing the web".
"Judges must not mistake their own views for facts, for appropriately qualified evidence," said Justice Murray Aldridge, who delivered the stinging judgement in the case which was earlier called, "unprecedented".
The court heard the original idea to stop the woman from breastfeeding came from Myers himself and wasn't about the tattoo at all. He was apparently concerned about how Ms Jackson's post natal depression would affect the baby.
"He firmly made up his mind before hearing all of the evidence," said Ms Jackon's barrister, Claire Cantrall.
One of the justices hearing the appeal, Judith Ryan described to the court how Myers had looked for a legal reason to stop the mother from feeding her baby.
"(So) she was taking medication for post partum depression. Well there's no evidentiary foundation. (His) next idea is that she smoked cannabis on a single occasion. That falls away. The next idea is that she should stop breastfeeding because she got a tattoo," she told the defence lawyer, acting on behalf of the father.
Myers then granted the injuction against the mother, despite her negative tests for HIV and hepatitis.
"Don't breastfeed any more. Seriously don't. It's not in the best interests of the child," he told the mother, acutely aware the case would make media attention.
"I don't care if it makes the front page and it probably will."
It's only the second ever breastfeeding ban of its type in Australian history. A court put an injunction on a woman feeding her child back in 1999 because she was HIV positive.
Myers' ban was criticized by health experts and outraged some breastfeeding advocates, who spoke about the safety about getting tattoos while carrying a baby.
"I think if it were reasonable then we would have very, many women in Australia who would be quite horrified and perhaps child protection authorities should be taking action because many mothers who are breastfeeding get tattoos – very often of their children's names," Dr Karleen Gribble told ABC News.
"I think when it comes to mothers and breastfeeding, we need to consider that mothers are people, they do things."