BREASTFEEDING NOT ALWAYS WELCOME IN WORLD OF WORK By Karen Brandon Tribune staff reporter March 20, 2001 To continue breastfeeding her daughter after she returned to work, Tulsa computer analyst Connie Hedge pumped milk in airport bathrooms, in her office cubicle behind a privacy curtain, and at the wheel of her car as she careened along the tollways of Oklahoma. "I think it's worth it," Hedges said of the odyssey coming to an end as her daughter, Jacquelyn, approaches her 1st birthday. "I really think that children were intended to drink mother's milk." Aided by technology, breastfeeding is resurging in the U.S. Breast pumps come disguised as briefcases and backpacks and can be plugged into cigarette lighters. Though breastfeeding rates still are far beneath national health goals, mothers are nursing their babies for longer periods of time at rates unprecedented in the modern era. Many obstacles Despite breastfeeding's undisputed health benefits to infants, women who choose to breastfeed and work encounter all manner of obstacles, among them employers who won't let them take breaks to pump milk at regular intervals, or who relegate women to bathroom stalls to pump milk; squeamishness over breast milk; and distinctly American sexual and cultural mores that surface on any matter involving bared breasts. Legislation has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to give women the legal right to pump milk in the workplace, a protection available in three states: Hawaii, Minnesota and Tennessee. "People shouldn't be fired or discriminated against in the workplace for expressing milk," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), sponsor of the Breastfeeding Promotion Act. The legislation also would give tax incentives to companies that provide lactation services and to women who purchase or rent breast pumps, and would set minimum federal safety standards for pumps. "This is no longer being viewed as a lifestyle choice," said Elizabeth Baldwin, legal adviser for the breastfeeding advocacy organization, La Leche League. "We are looking at breastfeeding, finally, for what it is, a very significant health choice for mother and baby." Breastfeeding has been linked to numerous benefits for the health, growth and development of infants, including fewer infections, diseases, and possible increased cognitive development. Women who breastfeed also benefit. They have reduced risks for ovarian and breast cancers, for instance. In 1999, two-thirds of women breastfed their newborns in the hospital, the highest rate since the figure was first recorded in 1965, according to the Ross Products Division of Abbott Laboratories, the infant formula manufacturer that has been the nation's primary source of breastfeeding rates for decades. The figure drops to 31 percent at six months and 17 percent at one year, more than double the levels at those intervals a decade earlier. At the same time, more than half of the mothers with children younger than 1 work, a rate that has nearly doubled since the mid-1970s. In addition, two-thirds of these working mothers are employed full-time, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The experiences of women trying to negotiate work and breastfeeding vary widely. Job lost Joney Lewis, a line worker at a factory in Danville, Ind., that makes power steering parts, said she quit her job because her employer, Dana Corp.'s Long Manufacturing Division, wouldn't give her a 20-minute break to pump milk for her 5-month-old son, Timothy. "This is my first baby, and I'm so excited that I breastfeed, and it's such a good thing, and they made me feel horrible about it," she said. Because she couldn't work out accommodations, she said, she was forced to quit a job at the plant, where she had worked for two years. A supervisor said she understood that a breastfeeding woman could wait eight hours without pumping. "I told her I would explode if I waited eight hours," Lewis said. A spokeswoman said that the company tried to accommodate Lewis but that they were unable to make arrangements. By contrast, Kelly Rome, a product manager at CIGNA Corp. in Bloomfield, Conn., pumps milk at least twice a day in a dedicated lactation room at her office. The company pays for the breast pump and supplies, and provides access to a lactation consultant 24 hours a day. Daily routine "I've got it down pretty much to a daily routine," Rome said, adding that the support has made all the difference in her decision to continue to nurse her son, who is 8 months old. "I couldn't imagine myself having to pump in the bathroom." The company has found that it saves $300,000 annually through the program because the generally healthier babies have reduced pharmaceutical costs and there is reduced absenteeism among mothers. About one-third of the states, including Illinois, have legislation that underscores a woman's right to breastfeed in public, and last year, Congress passed another Maloney-sponsored bill, giving women the legal right to breastfeed on federal property. Previously, Maloney said, women breastfeeding babies had been escorted out of the Capitol, national parks and the National Gallery of Art. To breastfeed, a woman must either regularly feed the baby every few hours or express the milk from her breasts. Otherwise, her milk-filled breasts will be painful and at risk for infection. Moreover, unless she continues regular pumping or nursing, milk production will cease. Sallie Page-Goertz, president of the International Lactation Consultant Association, said two key hurdles that face women who want to breastfeed are time and a place to pump. "Those are huge hurdles," she said, especially for women in blue-collar or low-wage service industry jobs. Even at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., where Page-Goertz works as a pediatric nurse practitioner, it took two years to gain access to a closet where women could pump, she said. "My bosses are very flexible. I can work at home. I can bring the baby to work. I can pump at work," said Julie Campanini, a jury consultant who travels frequently and is trying to nurse her son, now 12 weeks old, for a year. Still, she said, she finds it traumatic to pump in bathroom stalls in airports and courthouses, where she is forever in search of an electric outlet. "It always feels like you're trying to hide it," she said. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com *********************************************** 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