"What has the world come to?" New mum's Instagram rant about commuters goes viral.

A breastfeeding mother was forced to stand for half an hour on a packed rush hour train because no one would offer her a seat.

Kate Hitchens, 32, was travelling home to Essex from London with her six-month-old son Charlie on Tuesday and “couldn’t get her head around” how inconsiderate everyone on the train was.

In an angry Instagram post, she shared a photo of herself standing on the packed train and wrote that commuters saw her nursing a “wriggling and writhing” 20lb Charlie but did nothing to help her.

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On my way home from London on a packed commuter train and this is what I faced. What has the world come to that a mother has to stand up on a moving train breast feeding a wriggling and writhing 6 month old, 20lb baby?! The point here isn’t just that I found it difficult because I was nursing (although that was bloody difficult!), but that not one person offered a mother carrying a small child a seat for around half an hour, or 3 stops! I could have asked, but I didn’t. I felt silly. I shouldn’t have to ask. Maybe some people didn’t see. I know for a fact some did; they made eye contact and actually smiled at me. I was thinking stop smiling and offer me your seat please! One lady looked up from her book and immediately offered me her seat, another lady then sat in it and when the lovely lady said ‘Oh excuse me I actually gave up my seat so this lady with a baby could sit down’ the sitting lady shrugged, plugged her earphones in and closed her eyes! I like to think that she needed that seat more than me, perhaps she was newly pregnant and in that early exhaustion period, perhaps she was knackered after a day at work, perhaps she was ill. Or perhaps she was just a twat. I hope not. I can somewhat understand not offering your seat to someone elderly; perhaps they might be offended you think they look old! I can understand not offering your seat to someone you suspect might be pregnant; maybe it’s just their time of the month or perhaps they are just naturaly curvy and they aren’t pregnant; perhaps you worry you might offend them. I cannot get my head around not offering a parent with a child a seat. Next time you see someone with a child on a train – if you’re able bodied and fit and healthy please offer your seat to them!

A post shared by Hitchens’ Kitchen BLW Club (@baby_led_weaning_club) on Sep 4, 2018 at 12:54pm PDT

“The point here isn’t just that I found it difficult because I was nursing (although that was bloody difficult!), but that not one person offered a mother carrying a small child a seat for around half an hour,” she wrote.

“I could have asked, but I didn’t. I felt silly. I shouldn’t have to ask. Maybe some people didn’t see. I know for a fact some did; they made eye contact and actually smiled at me. I was thinking stop smiling and offer me your seat please!”

Kate, who writes about baby-led weaning on her blog Hitchins’ Kitchen, told the BBC the journey left her feeling “embarrassed and flustered”.

“I don’t make a big deal of breastfeeding and try to be discreet but everyone could see what I was doing,” she said. “Physically, I felt quite uncomfortable as I didn’t have much to hold on to and Charlie was jiggling around as the train moved so it hurt.”

Kate called for people to be more considerate: “Next time you see someone with a child on a train – if you’re able bodied and hit and healthy please offer your seat to them!”