Air travel is unpleasant, and even moreso if you're traveling with an infant or toddler who has just pooed in his or her diaper.Here's why it's a problem for traveling moms: most airplanes don't have changing tables. Even if you change your child’s diaper immediately before and after a flight, sometimes, as the saying goes, poo happens. Even at 35,000 feet. And it's a most awful predicament. For one thing, everyone seated around you immediately smells it. And there’s no good place to go to do the job. I often resort to changing my rolly-polly babies on the top of the curved toilet seats in the "lavatories," but since all babies are bigger than the toilet seat and there is no place for a traveling mom to put her diaper changing equipment, it literally becomes a balancing act.

The day will come when I read about a mom who is suing an airline because her child was injured rolling onto the lavatory floor while she tried changing a diaper. I'll be horrified, but not at all surprised.I was once granted permission to put my changing pad down on the floor of the flight attendants' galley area. That was the easiest place for me, because I had some elbow room. But let me tell you, that was not enjoyable for the flight attendants. I mean -- you know what I'm talking about, traveling moms -- that smell lingers.

I once saw a woman spread her 2-year-old out across a row of seats and change a diaper that smelled so disgusting, all 200 people aboard squinted in disgust and considered jumping out the emergency exit door.

What is the solution here? A flight attendant friend told me that some planes are now being equipped with changing tables (they've waited till NOW?), but given that they don't even want to give passengers a bag of pretzels anymore, I wouldn’t hold my breath.But the passengers should.

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