Wife and Mommy

I’m a little late to commenting on this news story, but it’s still an important topic to me.

The Husband and I were living overseas when Bito was born.  The latter part of my pre-natal care and Bito’s birth took place in a Japanese birthing center, which was a cool experience.  The nurses were kind-hearted and extremely sweet, but there was no lactation support.  I suppose they could’ve been offering advice, but since The Husband and I didn’t speak much any Japanese, and the nurses’ English was marginal at best, I didn’t ask for help.  Of the American community we were attached to, there was one recent mother who talked me through her experience.   I was armed with a bunch of books about nursing.  Other than that, that was it.  I decided I would give it a go, but if it didn’t work out for Bito and me, I wasn’t going to feel guilty.

Well.  Bito had no problem with nursing.  He got it right away, and really made it easy for me.  We spent his newborn days establishing a good nursing relationship.  However, I knew I would be returning to work when he was almost three months old.

Since it had started so easily and he had only had breastmilk his entire short life, I decided to pump at work.  I had no problem with using formula if it had come to that, but it became a challenge for me to see how long we could continue his diet of mama’s milk only.  I purchased a top-of-the-line breast pump and learned to use it while I was still on maternity leave.  I read everything I could on expressing, storing, and freezing breastmilk–Kellymom became my best friend.  And so I went back to work.

I was fortunate for several things:

1. My schedule allowed me to express three times during my work day without time constraints.
2. I had a classroom that was not shared with anyone, so I could close the door and lock it.
3. There was a sink and a refrigerator in my room.
4. The Husband supported me by ensuring the pump parts were clean and packed each morning for me.

Pretty ideal for a mother who is pumping milk, right?  I was relaxed, and my confidence grew as I found I could express oodles of milk–I probably could’ve fed his entire daycare with what I produced!  Bito continued to thrive on breastmilk only until he started solids at six-ish months, and continued nursing until he was almost 18  months old.

So enough about my story.  This is all to say that the recent news story covered by Campbell Brown struck a chord with me.

I suppose there are two sides to this story, but the employer isn’t saying much.  This much seems to be true:  LaNisa Allen got a job with this company.  When she interviewed, she told them she would need a place to pump breastmilk.  She was told she could pump at 11:00, in the bathroom, five hours after the last time she fed her baby.  She began to pump earlier in the bathroom because as any nursing mother knows, going too long between feedings or expressing the milk can be quite painful.  After twenty days of working there, she was fired for taking unauthorized breaks.

First:  pumping in the bathroom??  Ewwww.
Second:  to be made to wait five hours before being allowed to pump?  Um, any mom who has been engorged will understand the feeling of having two full bags of pebbles attached to your chest.  Enough said.
Third:  Unauthorized breaks?  I think Jeffrey Toobin, CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst, summarizes my third point best: “The irony is that smoking breaks are so institutionalized, everywhere and everyone gets them, and that makes you sick. And breastfeeding makes everyone healthier, but that’s harder to get.”

So technically, Allen was not fired for pumping at work.  She was fired for taking unauthorized breaks.   If she’d asked to take breaks to pump and been denied, she could’ve filed for discrimination.  Okay, sure.  Whatever.  Let’s just ignore that she had to wait until 11:00 and was told she could pump in the bathroom.  Actually, I am surprised that the employer chose to not let this die quietly.  They released a statement which included:  ”…does and will continue to provide work-place lactation support for all nursing mothers, including considerations for time, place and opportunity. Many nursing mothers have and continue to take advantage of these accommodations. In this particular case accommodations were in place and provided.”  Instead, they let it go all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, thus opening themselves up for the possibility of negative press.  Did they not learn from Motrin’s babywearing commercial that it’s not a good idea to tick off a bunch of moms?

Senators Carolyn Maloney (NY) and Jeff Merkley (OR) are working to pass The Breastfeeding Promotion Act. If passed, the act would protect breastfeeding women from being fired or discriminated against in the workplace.  There are other points to the bill, which you can read here.  There’s also a link to tell your representatives to support the act.  I personally will be signing online as well as writing paper letters to my legislators.  I’ll also be boycotting the employers’ products.  And if I could boycott the state of Ohio, I would…but that might be a little tough to do.

Anyway.  This post got way longer than I intended, but it is a topic I am passionate about.  Please feel free to pass this along to others.