how to handle an expressing mother in class. WWYD?

[susanjones123]

NC because this will definitely out me to any colleagues or students.

One of my students (I'm an HE lecturer) had 6 months off recently to have a baby. She's now returned to study which is great and we are delighted to have her back. The department has been very accommodating for her and let her miss classes, leave early when necessary, bring her baby to meetings etc.

So far, so fine.

She's still BFing and using expressed milk when her DH does the feeding. She uses an electric pump. The problem is that she uses the pump in the classroom. I don't mean in the actual class, during the lectures but at the beginning when everyone is arriving and sometimes during group work activities. I, personally, find this very off-putting (not putting me off my teaching but just generally quite off-putting) and other students have commented quite negatively.

As the main academic she has contact with, I feel as though it falls to me to have a word about this but I'm really unsure how to handle it.

I bottle-fed both of mine from day 1 so I'd really appreciate the experiences of people who have BF on this, please.

If they find it uncomfortable and distracting (for whatever reason) then that is an issue that needs to be addressed.

Mini some of your comments really don't lend credibility to your argument Yet another rude and arrogant comment, this time directed at the OP's lecturing skills. And you accuse other people of being immature?

The sarcastic applause will do me

Oh, sorry, ithought, that was to user, who seems to think she deserves something ever so special for breastfeeding for 14 months, while expressing in a lecture is obviously disgusting.

This is one of those 'only on MN' threads, isn't it

Of course it's not appropriate. There are some things you just don't do in a formal setting, be that at university lecture hall or in the workplace - and expressing breast milk is one of them. Yes, it's wonderful she's so in touch with her body and has no hang ups about expressing blah blah, but no. You just don't. Speak to HR and find her a room somewhere.

Because expressing is JUST LIKE flashing your vagina and menstrual fluids around.

Because it's like, milk. Human milk.

I think it's bollocks to make assumptions about how often she needs to pump. None of us have any idea. At six months in, I had to pump one or two times more often than the feeds I was trying to cover, this is because the pump is less effective than a baby at removing milk from a breast. So to have enough milk to cover the feeds I needed to pump more often. Let's see... either she's pumping more often to make a point, or... she's providing her baby with the right amount of milk... Hmmm.

I think she's brave to pump in public. My (multinational, supposedly family friendly) company didn't provide me with an appropriate place to pump and so I sat in the car three times a day. I'm pretty sure people looking out of their windows and coming / going from the car park saw a flash of boob now and then and honestly who cares.

There's a lot of worrying about the other students going on here. What do we think is going to happen to them? That a lactating woman might in some crazy way become more normal to them? That they might get slightly irritated by a motor running quietly for a few minutes a day (my car engine was noisier and more polluting!). Or what? Really, FFS, what a fuss about nothing. Good for her.

Tell me about it, SirC. Next we'll be having them tossing off their burquas and trying for equal pay.

SirChenjin - I have sat in a pub with a group of women where one of them has been expressing her milk. Her baby was exclusively EBF and if she'd been sent off to a room on her own for 15/20 minutes at a time it would have been very isolating and boring for her.

Expressing isn't intrinsically indecent - like going to the toilet or taking a tampon out - there is not a society in the world where people do these things openly in company if they have to option not to. But there are plenty of cultures where expressing milk wouldn't get the same horrified and squeamish reaction it does in the uk. Because it's NOT an intrinsically indecent act, no matter how much you insist it is.

Aaah nae worries LDR my point kinda sucked anyway. I'm no good at this debating stuff but I am at being cool when people are organising their children's food. Cooooooool.

"There's a lot of worrying about the other students going on here. What do we think is going to happen to them? That a lactating woman might in some crazy way become more normal to them?"

Well said.

Only good can come of desensitising young people to normal lactation.

Blimey, only on MN would this EVER be considered remotely reasonable! It's massively inappropriate.

But this is 'other cultures' - this is the UK, and other students have expressed their concerns. I would have the same reaction from work colleagues if I expressed at the start or end of meetings (I wouldn't, it's not professional) and I work in the NHS. Sitting in a pub with your mates is vastly different from the formal settings I described (university lectures, workplaces...) and it is inappropriate to express in these places when other private rooms are available.

I'm not sure if I've missed the explanation but why have the college not offered her a private room to express? My workplace (a university) did that 15 years ago so I'm a bit surprised that college don't do that nowadays!

Love the idea that lactation has no place a work.

In which case what do you do with lactating women?

Ban them from the workplace?

Only two women have mentioned pumping in public and both mentioned pumping in their cars, as if this is a public place. Of course it's not, public would be in the foyer or in your meeting. You didn't pump there because it's not acceptable to do so and there's no immediate feeding need whatsoever aged 6 months. That's why you were stuck in a car, which in the main, people can't see what's going on inside.

I have never seen anyone do this in public in work or education and I've seen lots of people breastfeed including in lectures/meetings.

Honestly, if one person comes on this thread and said they pumped in front of their colleagues (not personal friends) or in a group setting such as in a seminar group, I will be amazed.

As for disrupting the group, I don't allow people to type on screens either unless they have some special reason why they need to and it is in their ILP- in group discussion the point is to interact, speaking, eye contact etc, not to do other activities. I wouldn't find typing on a laptop conducive to this either- all are distractions from the thing you are supposed to be doing.

I can change a tampon discreetly in 45 seconds. There's another sterile fluid.

Honestly, although part of me wants to bang the drum for this woman's right to keep her supply at normal levels (no expressing means less milk, which is indirectly the same as discriminating against a breastfeeding woman and her baby) there's part of me that just thinks "really? Right here, in this room at this time?"

Not sure OP, I'll be interested to hear how you handle it. By the way, are you a little embarrassed for your students that they are complaining to you instead of having a chat with her directly over a coffee? Not very adult is it.

I'll take the medal and the big star sticker. Both will do just fine. Thanks LRD

I am pretty great. And I didn't whip out the pump in public.
Analogy to changing tampons possible not entirely justifiable. But illustrative.
Thank Christ I don't have to work with a crowd of lunatics like the headers on this thread.
Such utter bullshit. It beggars belief.

In which cultures is it just fine and dandy to express in the workplace or in lecture halls? I've been to quite a few different educational institutions around the world and never, literally, never seen a person express in public.

Sorry, what is 'other cultures'?

I am completely lost.

I'll just sit with ithought and be cool.

I do think then is right this is an implausible scenario. But it's disturbing how many people seem to think adult students are delicate flowers who should be shielded from anything and everything. FFS, it is only breastmilk and a bit of noise.

SirChenjin - a hundred years ago men complained about having women attending lectures.

It just wasn't seemly and it made people feel Bally uncomfortable don'tcha know!

Social mores can change if we refuse to pander to pointless squeamishness about a positive, healthy, beneficial and environmentally sound phenomena - breastfeeding and all its attendant behaviours.

Gosh, you're nice, user.

And may I say how fortunate I feel not to work with you, too.

The only argument anyone seems to have against this is that it's 'inappropriate'. Why? What's the exact issue?

If a student is sat next to her drinking cows milk (or, tbh, anything) from a carton using their mouth, why is expressing human milk from her breasts the thing that's inappropriate. Is it because, perhaps, women's breasts are considered as purely sexual? Nor what? I'm all ears.

Agree this is an only on MN situation. Not ok at all. No immediate need to do this and it's perfectly normal to express in your own time and with a degree of privacy. Not the same as oppressing bfers (I was one).

Because all attention should be focused on the lecture, the course, the students, whatever. Not drinking milk, expressing milk, massaging a fellow student to relieve their tense shoulders, listening while performing yoga head stands, plucking ones eyebrows, mashing up broccoli for tomorrow's dinner or pacing up and down because you think better that way. All very legitimate activities which don't strictly speaking affect anyone else's learning experience but they are not appropriate either.

Yes, quangle, but back in the real world, students and lecturers in HE have to cope with all sorts of distractions, some of them noisy, which allow students who would historically have been unable to get an education to get one.

I know it's terribly sad for little Julian and Tabitha to have to put up with the likes of new mothers (or disabled students, who're similarly 'disruptive'), but I feel they'll survive.