This small piece was in a publication called Time Out New York Kids,
geared to NYC-area parents with small children.
http://www.tonykids.com/outthere/15/k15.ot.breastinshow.html.
Breast in show
NYC companies are (finally) learning to accommodate new moms.
Breast-feeding is in again. At trendy Pastis, nursing mothers dine on
eggs Benedict as their tots sip on mama lattes. On the mezzanine of
the Time Warner Center, rows of hip moms in size-six Sevens sit on
white Mies van der Rohe–style leather lounge chairs, nursing en masse
as they catch up on Gotham gossip. And in the gleaming office towers
of midtown and Wall Street, new mothers are retiring to ever-plusher
lactation rooms to express milk for their infants back home. It beats
trying to pump in a bathroom stall.
Companies such as IBM, Kaplan, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, Showtime
and HBO are offering immaculate new facilities for mothers. The digs
range from modest (a repurposed supply closet) to plush: In the
enormous lactation room at insurance firm Marsh & McLennan, moms can
pump at any of five curtained stations, each outfitted with an easy
chair, a phone and electrical outlets; there’s also a sink, cubbies
for pumps and a fridge for storing milk. “I couldn’t believe when it
came time for me to pump and I made my way to that room,” says former
Marsh employee Emily Lombardi, now a stay-at-home mother of three.
“You don’t expect that kind of attention from very large companies.”
Ironically, huge corporations tend to have the most breast-friendly
facilities, while groovy, so-called progressive nonprofits and kid-
oriented workplaces (such as Sesame Workshop) are surprisingly behind
the times. “It all boils down to money,” says Leigh Anne O’Connor, a
lactation consultant and spokesperson for La Leche League New York, a
breast-feeding advocacy group. “The companies with big cash are the
ones that have these rooms.”
Although New York State has one of the nation’s most progressive laws
about breast-feeding—a woman can nurse anywhere she has the legal
right to be—it is disappointingly not one of the states that require
employers to provide pumping mothers with a dedicated space. Even
without specific legislation, more New York City employers are
realizing that breast-fed babies are healthy babies; and that healthy
babies equal less employee absenteeism, lower health-care costs and
generally happier moms.
For HBO account representative Yvette Meaney, the cable network’s
generous policies (including six months’ maternity leave and use of a
hospital-grade pump in the lactation room) transformed her return to
work. “My first day back, I cried the whole way,” she says. “When I
found out I’d be able to keep nursing, it made the transition so much
easier. I can’t provide everything for my son, but I can supply
breast milk. And my employer is helping me to do that.”
Lynn Christensen, CD(DONA), LCCE
Tenafly, New Jersey, USA
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