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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