I posted in Chat about taking my baby to an OU tutorial. It's five hours long, it's in a fortnight, I was only told about it today and it's a long way away, so I've emailed the tutor to say I'd need to bring DS if that's ok. On the OU forum I've been told that I might not be allowed to take DS on the premises for insurance reasons though...really? I thought universities would be pretty right on about breastfeeding, so I wondered if anybody on here knew about it.
Please does anyone know how this (from the Maternity Action leaflet referencing the 2010 Equalities Act) applies in practice to HE institutions?
"Further and higher education bodies must not discriminate, harass or victimise a student who is breastfeeding in terms of admission or provision of education or by excluding the student or subjecting her to any detriment. This includes access to benefits, facilities or services."
DS will be 4m old and is a bottle refuser, never mind that I am rubbish at expressing and it would take me a couple of days to express enough for one feed, never mind a whole day's worth. He is also a big hungry type and I can't see him taking much formula from a cup (I don't really want to give him formula anyway).
When I registered for the module I didn't expect to be allocated to another city (or to have a total bottle refuser!), and the tutorials on my last module were once a month and only 2 hours long which I could have managed.
If I don't go on this one I won't get to meet my tutor until March. I know that it's not compulsory but in my experience of OU it is much better to meet your tutor and go to their tutorials because they mark all your TMAs.
So yeah, anyway, I'm not trying to be awkward or precious or anything but I sort of assumed that universities would be used to students needing to breastfeed.
The tutorial is in another university's premises in case anyone is confused about that!
I'm not sure what I'm asking really! I think I need to go to bed. Any thoughts would be appreciated :)
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Universities and breastfeeding...
8 replies
DebbieTitsMcGee · 29/09/2012 02:10
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