Thought you all would be interested in this article. A mom from the pumping
moms  list sent it to me.

Maurenne Griese, RNC, BSN, CCE, CBE
Manhattan, KS  USA
[log in to unmask]
http://www.networksplus.net/griese


> From the front page of the WSJ yesterday.
>
> August 31, 1999
>
>
> For Working Moms, Nursing
> Is Something to Keep in the Closet
> By ELEENA DE LISSER
> Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
> When Denise Lewis, a former computer specialist at the U.S. Justice
> Department, returned to work after a two-month maternity leave, she
needed
> a
> private place to pump breast milk to be given later to her son. The best
> she
> could find: a computer storage area -- a converted closet, really.
> At first, Mrs. Lewis locked the door while inside. But several co-workers
> had their own key and entered without knocking. Next, she put up a sign
> with
> a big orange cow on it and the words "ROOM IN USE." The message didn't
get
> across.
> One day, "I just heard the click of the door and I see this cart rolling
> with computers on it," Mrs. Lewis says. Startled, she cried out "Wait!
> Wait!" and jumped out of the chair, leaving spill stains on her silk
> blouse
> and pants.
> Friendly Infrastructure
> Breast-feeding has been on the rise in recent years. And that means one
> more
> way that women must juggle their maternal and professional duties. It
> isn't
> always as awkward as it was for Mrs. Lewis (who now works part-time as a
> teacher); many employers are taking steps to make life more comfortable
> for
> nursing mothers. But even then, while the infrastructure has caught up
> with
> reality, attitudes sometimes haven't. The breast as food source is a
> hush-hush subject.
> In our sex-drenched society, many people wax squeamish about
> breast-feeding.
> "We use breasts to sell everything except what they were designed to do,"
> says Barbara Heiser, a nurse and spokeswoman for the National Alliance
for
> Breastfeeding Advocacy in Baltimore.
> That said, all but six of the companies on Working Mother magazine's 100
> Best Companies list now offer pumping rooms, where new mothers can
> "express"
> without fear of interruption. Aetna </inap-bin/bb?sym=aet&page=15>  Inc.,
> the Hartford, Conn., insurer, says its two-year-old lactation program has
> saved it thousands of dollars and cut absenteeism. Meanwhile, DCC Inc., a
> Westport, Conn., provider of dependent-care counseling, says 173
> corporations have expressed interest in its "Mothers At Work" lactation
> program, which includes customized design of a "mother's room," lactation
> counseling and employee education.
> Working moms like the accommodation, even if it sometimes makes them feel
> like members of a secret society. They often tape photos of their infants
> on
> the walls of their company pumping rooms, swap child-rearing stories
(some
> pumping rooms allow for more than one mom at a time) and give each other
> advice.
> A Secret Handshake
> "People would hang up [parenting] articles. There was candy. We had a
> great
> time," says Elizabeth Cary, an Aetna employee who used the company's
> lactation room for about five months. Over time, the women using the room
> developed their own form of a secret handshake. "We all were carrying
this
> purple bag" containing the pump, Ms. Cary says, "and you'd see another
> mother with a purple bag walking down the hall and you'd just smile."
> Some people are surprised to find that their employer has set aside space
> for a female colleague to provide for her infant on the job. "People are
> inquisitive and they have no idea what the room is about and they start
> conjuring up ideas on what it would be like," says Ginny Norton, a
manager
> at Bayer Corp. in West Haven, Conn., who used one of the company's
> lactation
> rooms for 14 months. Bayer subsidized the cost of her electric breast
pump
> and provided 24-hour access to lactation consultants. "Without this
> program," she says, "I wouldn't have been able to nurse this long."
> Overall, more women are nursing their babies, though usually only for the
> first few weeks of life. In a 1997 study by the Ross Products
baby-formula
> division of Abbott Laboratories </inap-bin/bb?sym=abt&page=15> , about
62%
> of mothers started nursing in the hospital, up from 18% a generation
> earlier. But only 18% of working moms were still breast-feeding by the
> time
> their babies were six months old, compared with 29% of stay-at-home moms.
> Whether a company is lactation-friendly or not, co-workers are what make
> the
> difference. Several mothers say they have been taunted, with colleagues
> "mooing" outside their office doors or calling them "Elsie." Some, like
> Mrs.
> Lewis, pump in less-than ideal-conditions -- in bathroom stalls, or in
> conference rooms with "Do Not Disturb" taped on the doors. In extreme
> instances, women say that their pay has been docked or that they have
been
> fired or demoted for taking too many pumping breaks.
> 'Naked in the Edit Room'
> While working as a producer at MSNBC, Alicia Martinez was frequently
> interrupted by male colleagues trying to enter an editing room where she
> was
> pumping. Once, when co-workers overheard her complaining about the
> interruptions, she says, a male colleague blurted out, "Alicia was naked
> in
> the edit room," she says. Another snickered: "She does something in there
> with her top off."
> When she tried to explain that she used the room to pump, "there was like
> an
> awkward pause and then they started laughing," she recalls. The
> insensitive
> jokes continued. Finally, she quit and sued MSNBC, claiming that she
> wasn't
> given sufficient privacy and had been subjected to retaliation, verbal
> harassment and a demotion due to her desire to nurse.
> Brande Stellings, an attorney for MSNBC, says that the network tried to
> accommodate Mrs. Martinez "in a variety of ways" but that she "rejected
> them." The two sides reached an out-of-court settlement earlier this
> month.
> (The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition has a content-sharing
> agreement
> with MSNBC.)
> The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 prohibits workplace
> discrimination
> for pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, but the courts
> haven't interpreted this to include breast-feeding. Congresswoman Carolyn
> B.
> Maloney of New York is sponsoring four different bills that would, among
> other things, give employers a tax break for setting up lactation rooms
> and
> protect breast-feeding under civil-rights law.
> Various state laws protect a woman's right to breast feed in public, and
> in
> a few states, employers are encouraged to develop programs for nursing
> moms.
> Last year, Minnesota passed a law requiring employers to provide
> "reasonable
> unpaid break time" for women to express milk and provide a private space
> for
> pumping. A bathroom stall doesn't count.
> Worse-Off Than Smokers
> "People who smoke are allowed to take breaks all the time," says Ellen
> Anderson, the Minnesota state senator who introduced the bill. "Why
should
> they get more privileges than a mother trying to give good nutrition to
> her
> newborn?"
> Until then, Dena Bernhard, a software engineer and mother of two young
> children, says she just grins and bears it. One associate said he could
> always tell when she was using her electric pump because his computer
> screen
> would dim. "I could take offense to that," she says, "but you smile and
> laugh along with them."
> In their defense, co-workers of working moms say the women sometimes
speak
> too bluntly about a subject that the nonlactating crowd would just as
soon
> keep under wraps. Bruce Vining, a software systems consultant and former
> colleague of Ms. Bernhard, admits to giving her a ribbing. "I'm pretty
shy
> about such natural things," he says, adding that he meant his comments in
> jest. "I'm not used to working in an environment where a woman wants to
> nurse, and it's a little uncomfortable."

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html