Dear Karleen,

You asked what the new ILO Maternity Protection insturments say about
adoptive breastfeeding.  There's nothing in the new convention about
adoption, but the last item in the recommendation, under "Related types of
leave," is this paragraph:

"5. Where national law and practice provide for adoption, adoptive parents
should have access to the system of protection offered by the Convention,
especially regarding leave, benefits and employment protection."

Adoption tunrs out to be one of those culturally difficult topics.  As I
recall, it was the some of the Middle Eastern countries that had problems
with benefits for adoptive parents because they had objections to adoption
itself.  Hence the first clause about "national law and practice."
Sub-Saharan African countries, on the other hand, with huge numbers of AIDS
orphans to be cared for, were strongly in favor of benefits for adopting
parents.

You notice that the wording on details says nothing about nursing breaks.  I
am sure that adoptive nursing did not come up in the debate.
I doubt whether most of the people in the committee--government, employers,
and workers representatives--would even know that induced lactation is
possible.  The breastfeeding advocacy group, at this point having won
everything we were going to win, had no reason or opportunity to add to the
discussion.  If an adoptive mother is nursing, I think she could point to
this paragraph as support when she requests nursing breaks, but she should
remember that it's in the recommendation, not the convention, so it is a
suggestion, not a standard.  Other useful arguments in her favor would be 1)
she doesn't have to take time off for pregnancy concerns, 2) her baby will
get health benefits from receiving human milk, 3) it's a matter of
fairness--if biological mothers who are lactating get nursing breaks, then
adoptive mothers who are lactating should get them too--the physical need is
the same (or maybe even greater).

Cheers,
Chris Mulford, RN, IBCLC
Co-coordinator, WABA Women & Work Task Force
Swarthmore  PA - Eastern USA



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