Bfing, expressing and the workplace-daily mail at it again!

[SeaShellsFiringUpTheQuattro]

Women bringing small businesses to their knees again....

Sounds like a good idea to me :)

I appreciate you cant take the piss for hours on end, but surely it's better to facilitate a skilled employee's return to work than pay for maternity cover/lose that skilled person completely.

They have so much to learn from Scandinavia!!

[StealthPolarBear]

While I support it in principle (and haven;t actually read the white paper) I have some concerns - that it will undermine maternity leave (why do you need so much time off when you can leave the baby in nursery & express), also that having guidance such as "provide a room or a screened-off area to give mothers privacy while they breastfeed" will emphasise the "do it in private" message (although I can see some women would want privacy and that's fair enough).
Just not convinced it's totally in line with everything else.

[StealthPolarBear]

ah...it relates to the new maternity/paternity leave proposals
that makes more sense

[HermyaAndThePomBears]

Have you read some of the comments!! Talk about caveman attitude, I suspect most of these men have been spurned by the fairer sex and are choosing to take their frustrations out on the world at large. Quite frankly with attitudes like that, I'm not surprised!

[asphyxia]

Can anyone clarify the current legal requirements for me? I thought much of this was aleady in place.

[NovemberAli]

Anne Widdecombe highlighted this article on the Andrew Marr show saying it was ridiculous that women should be given time to express milk at work and suggesting that providing a fridge for storing milk was a crazy notion - never liked that woman.
Am very interested in this as will be needing to express milk at work myself when I go back in March - I went in do a bit of admin work for a couple of hours last week and did end up breast feeding in the office

[pushmepullyou]

I thought that work places already had to provide a safe/private place to express that was not a toilet? Isn't it discrimination not to?

[tethersjinglebellend]

Another example of Broken Britain. I blame the asylum seekers.

[MoonFaceMamaaaaargh]

Are Breastfeeding lefties giving british home owners diabetes?

Crap journalism again from the DM. 66% of women in routine jobs bf? and 88% of the rest aswell apparently?

No mention of bf women taking less time off obviously.

COmments are classic. "Stay at home ladies!" WTF!?

[Fibilou]

Don't know whether my comment will get on but here it isw

"Most women go back to work at around 6 months. Our BFing rateat that point are terribly low (about 3%) and I doubt therefore that this would have any impact whatsoever on employers. At least breastfeeding breaks provides a health boost for both baby and mother, unlike the countless 10 minute cigarette breaks taken by smokers.

I recently went back to work and take a break out of my 6 hour day to express milk for my 10 month old. It takes me 20 minutes, once a day. I don't get any other break during that day as working time regulations require a break after 6 hours. I don't take a cigarette break, don't surf the internet, don't make personal calls at work.

Lets compare a full time worker BFing mother with a smoker shall we ?
BFing mum - 5 x 20 minute breaks for the WHO recommendation of 2 ys. over a 48 week year - 160 hours.

Smoker - taking 3 x 10 minute breaks per day over a 48 week year for a 25 year career - 6000 hours

So what would you rather employ ? BFing Mum or smoker ?"

[Fibilou]

SPB, I am a proud public BFer - but hate expressing in front of anyone, even my own parents.
I am very fortunate to work in a very Mum-friendly office and have access to a lockable room to pump but if I didn't I either wouldn't do it or would go in the loo.

[Fibilou]

apols for the typos - have baby sleeping in the sling on my chest while I MN !

[Fibilou]

from the way they go on you'd think we had a Rwandan level of bfing, wouldn't you, not the woeful rates we do.

I'm sure plenty of male DM readers would be delighted to see a bit of BFing at work, despite their protests

[onimolap]

I thing this is all a bit pointless actually. Mothers who bf after they return to work have their bf patterns and coping mechanisms well in place (and I thought work places alesdy had a general duty to provide support).

If the aim of this is to increase breatfeeding rates, then surely it would be better to focus on appropriate interventions in the early weeks?

[StealthPolarBear]

Fibilou, they are talking about expressing AND bf at work. While I can see many women would want privacy (I wouldn't express in front of colleagues, though have bf in a directorate meeting) I just think the terminology implies that privacy is the normal way you should bf.

Just one little point - the WHO guidance is a minimum of 2 years, not up to 2 years. Otherwise I like your comment. Though I could never get on with expressing, and if I'd had to return to work and epress at 6 months that probably would have been the beginning of the end of bf for me.

[Meglet]

They're arguing about it on Sky news now.

omnio I agree with you there. They need to sort it out in the first few weeks when it's hellish. More midwifes, not leaving women to struggle after birth , fully paid paternity leave for dads and bf counsellors coming to the house.

I thought workplaces already had to support bf mums anyway .

[HermyaAndThePomBears]

Omnio I agree as well, my first few weeks with DS were horrid with BF. I was very lucky as my doula was a BF counseller and my antenatel ward sent one of their MW's to the house to help me out when I asked for it.

I was also told before I went off work by my union that if I was still BF when I came back to work I had the right to a private area to express or that a family member could bring the baby to work for me if I was doing a late so I could feed him.

[CamperFan]

totally agree, omnio, the early days are so hard, and i think more support would make a massive difference, especially for women who don't have a supportive partner or family.

[FortunateHamster]

I thought employers already had to do this, tbh.

I'm going back to work in March as well and am thinking about expressing for when my son is in nursery.

The article mentions that women finish breastfeeding at six months. Well, no. They might choose to. And they might start weaning then, but many women will continue to breastfeed for a longer period.

I am not sure how my company would provide me space. The meeting rooms all have glass panes in the doors and the only other private room is the disabled loo, which I could express in, but I don't know if I'd want to prepare my baby's food in a toilet. I guess if I just faced away from the door it would work in one of the smaller meeting rooms. Not sure how my boss will feel about it though!

Someone on another thread here mentioned expressing/bfeeding women getting 'extra' breaks being unfair on other workers. Well so long as I get the job done, I don't see the problem. I think supporting women to breastfeed their baby (if they choose to feed that way) is a good thing. Plenty of companies allow smoking breaks (mine does and I don't begrudge them), and I'd take fewer breaks than that.

Hmm, it will be interesting to see what becomes of all this.

[Honeydragon]

I go back in January..... I can

"express and dump in the toilet"
"use the first aid room" 3 buildings away "but you can't use the fridge"


After the response "your still feeding?"

dd is 11 months

health and safety would never allow a baby brought in to feed in our place either, we work in a office and cannot wear open toe shoes in case of accidents ffs.

[MayDayChild]

Legally they dont have to provide a place to pump but think that they do have to provide a fridge!

[DrewsGirl]

onimolap - I agree with getting mums breastfeeding in the early weeks as i know very few mums who are still feeding once back at work, my lo was in special care and the whole time we were there i struggled to get him to bf and only 1 nurse ever helped or gave me advice, the others just let me get on witn it and they were just happy to carry on feeding him through the tube. as a 1st time mum with a horrible birth and a baby in special care i could hardly think straight to look after myself let alone think about how to bf when my baby wouldnt do it :(

[Dylthan]

Have just sent a letter to my employer saying I will be continuing to breastfeed when I return in April.

The sent a letter back asking if I will be bringing dd in to do this. ( I won't be I just want a place to express) I really hope they will be supportive.

It's the nhs I work for so I expect they will find me somewhere but it's just my other collegues I'm worried about. The line manager of one section has already being complaining about how ridicules it is the amount of maternity leave we get (wasn't like that when she had her kids ) so expect this will just be another thing to hate me fir

it makes sense to me I'll be returning earlier then if I couldn't do this and it's only 20 minutes out of my day I'll still be perfectly capable of getting all my work done.

[elvislives]

I expressed for a bit when I first went back to work (DD was almost 10 mo). They let me use the first aid room, and bought me a mini-fridge (designed for beer/ Coke) which was just big enough for a couple of bottles.

[Towanmummies]

i too work for the nhs and altho i'm not back til july i've seen the final part of the maternity risk assessemnt thingy and it's all to do with returning to work and if you are still breastfeeding (which i fuuly intend to be doing. not sure if i'll be full time or part time and what shift patterns will be like but would love toknow what fridge they'll suggest for me.... the "controlled drugs" fridge or the "specimens" fridge... maybe just normal one in the staffroom... that's fine but i work with a lot of milk-pinchers so someone might end up with it in their tea... ha ha

[AngelDog]

Ah, you should work in local government - I start back to work tomorrow, but forgot to tell my boss I'm bf my 11 m.o. until last Thursday. She asked if I needed anything (no, there's a room I've used before, plus communal fridge) and if it posed a risk to anyone (no), and I'd bet that's the last I hear about it from the management.

I hope it doesn't take 'up to 40 minutes' though, as I want to do it in my lunch hour so I can hurry home to DS!

SPB, I thought the text of the WHO stuff was 'up to 2 years and beyond if desired', or am I remembering wrong?