There is nothing to my knowledge in the ten steps to successful
breastfeeding about employee pumping rooms. But how on earth could
anyone think that the outpatient lactation assessment room would be
sufficient space for all the myriad women needing to pump in the
course of a normal day? And what about privacy? How many staff want
to be expressing milk in the presence of patients they might be caring
for? Not to mention cleanliness, and accessibility - is it
appropriate for patients to use a space contaminated by staff from
other wards, and do the staff have time to get to one single location
in their allotted pumping time? There should be a suitable space for
milk expression on every single floor, preferably on every ward, such
as a room otherwise used for exams, or meetings, or breaks.
Would anyone expect all staff to only use the toilets at the
gastroenterology clinic, or the urology clinic, rather than having
toilets available wherever there are employees? Why should they use
patient facilities to carry out an equally normal, healthy bodily
function, just because it is the same function as the patients in that
particular area?
Is there a common cafeteria for staff and patients? If no, why not?
Use the same argument about pumping. If yes, what is the rationale
for that, and would it be applicable to the situation of expressing
milk?
Granted, this is not a huge problem where I work, since women are
fairly comfortable expressing milk in full view of their colleagues,
in a break room or the like, and we are very used to seeing containers
of breastmilk floating around on the ward. I still remember my first
boss here, receiving a commercial representative for some product or
other, while she was borrowing one of the ward pumps to express for
her baby at home. I don't think it ever occurred to her to stop
pumping and put her bra flaps up while talking to the guy, so he was
just forced to act like it was totally normal too.
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway
Hey, maybe this would be a way to deal with formula reps! Make a rule
that they can only do their presentations in the staff pumping rooms...
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