I was thinking about breastfeeding last night and looked out this thing which wrote for LLL a few years ago which I've anonymised.
"The square mile of the City of London, UK, houses one of the most inspiring and interesting business communities in the world. In 2004 it is largely a meritocracy. Whether you are female or male, black or white, you only last if you are good. It is the excellence, the competition, the adrenalin that deals and litigation bring which draws me in to it and makes life exciting. I practise [ XXXX] I have had five children over the last 20 years all of whom I breastfed until at least they were one year old.
Breastfeeding was always going to be something I would love. My mother, who sadly died in 2004, was one of the UK?s first members of the National Childbirth Trust in 1961 when I was born and I would avidly read NCT booklets as a teenager about birth positions and the like. From a young age I had deep maternal urges and was delighted to marry when I was 21...... when my daughter was born 13 months later. I took two weeks? holiday as maternity leave. I felt maternity rights, which, in effect, discriminate, were sexist. They were not consistent with my feminist position so I chose not to exercise them.
ABC who is now 20 was fed nothing but breastmilk. I was expressing it at work with a battery operated breast pump and taking it home each night in an insulated freezer bag with ice pack. I fed her when I was home, before work, as soon as I arrived back and in the evening and night. I recall all those years ago a meeting of a joint venture, a room of 50 people. It was getting late. I told my business contact I had to go home soon to breastfeed (the need was mine, not the baby?s). We wrapped things up fairly quickly. I never found any problems with customers or clients and babies. They have children themselves. It is a connection, not a difficulty.
........... moved to XXX. It was fun and I had our second child soon after. DEF is now 18. Again she was fully breastfed. I took 2 weeks off work when she was born. In all cases I worked until I went into labour. I cycled from the train station whilst having mild contractions the day before she was born. I was 24, young and fit. Pregnancy is not an illness.
I always loved the process of breastfeeding. I remember after the first birth sitting with books on feeding on my right and [ business books] on my left in my bed getting the hang of it. I have never identified with the women who find it hard. Once my babies latched and after the milk came in it was largely an enjoyable thing, not a chore. I only once had mastitis and I remember joking with the doctor over it, that I had been having babies for 14 years and only then right at the tail end of it was there a problem. The twins were still feeding. They were one year old. Antibiotics put it right. I was travelling back from a meeting about 200 miles from London that day and we arranged an NHS Direct doctor?s appointment, the last one, for 10.30pm to which I rushed from the station late at night. Within a day the infection was controlled and feeding continued. It was the only ?problem? that I remember.
Breastfeeding is warm and intimate. I will always remember all those nights I have had feeding every few hours, a small baby close to me. It is a tremendously good way to relax after work, arriving home, your breasts full of milk to sit down with the baby and feel the release of oxytocin as the milk lets down. I was recruited by [ xxx] when I was 5 months pregnant and had two other children under four. I was 26 years old. GHI, who is now 16, fed well and third children have very much to fit in with the others.
We had a nanny who came to our house every day to look after all the children and who left when I or my husband arrived home. In my first year her gross salary was more than my wage but it was a small price to pay for a wonderful 20+ year career thereafter. The investment soon paid off in all kinds of ways. With [child 3] I took 5 weeks off work. Three children under four was the hardest time for us because of lack of sleep and work but working made it easier. Money and power and the ability to buy in help with cleaning and also having a break from the 24/7 demands of small children, can for some women makes things better than staying at home all the time. It can also ensure more equity within a relationship.
City of London firms are very keen to keep their legal staff who cost a lot of money to train. We have in the UK very strict sex discrimination legislation and also parental leave and some paternity leave. What matters is whether you can get done the work you need to do for your clients to the standard required. You eat what you kill and are only as good as your last job. Having children to support is a wonderful incentive to make men and women work harder.
So the children grew older. When the youngest of the first three was at full time school, after 10 years in the City, I [ xxx]. It went tremendously well. What started out as a short experiment led to the last ten years of exciting and intellectually challenging work. I was no longer breastfeeding by then. We moved to a much bigger house in 1997 and I wanted a last child before I was too old. I was 36. Learning I had conceived twin boys was one of the happiest days I have had. They were born in 1998. Now of course things were easier. I was working at home when not out at meetings. I was able to hire a daily nanny to bring the boys to me to breastfeed whenever they needed it. I could feed one at the same time as take a business call sometimes, although usually I would leave the office and sit on the sofa, a twin on a cushion on each side of me. In fact I was dealing with work emails the day after they were born. When I was out I expressed milk. Virtually always however I fed them together, one on each side and if one woke at night I would wake the other and feed him as well. It worked well. I also by that stage had someone to the house every week day morning to do all our washing and cleaning. Domestically and financially things were tremendously easier at 36 than they had been when I had my first child at 22 and had to buy her baby clothes second hand at charity shops ? not that babies care. They just need love and warmth.
There were no problems feeding the twins apart from some soreness before the milk came in on day 4. I had hired an independent midwife, Caroline Flint, to deliver the ?baby? at home but when we learned there would be two of them we decided she and her colleague would deliver them in hospital. However IJK had other ideas and was born upstairs at home. His twin was born 7 hours later in hospital ? two very different and separate labours on the same day; twins born in different London boroughs ? something the births registrar had never had. However LMN?s birth in hospital was good too. A drip speeded up the contractions and he was delivered by my own midwives there. We were home by that evening, all safe and well. The twins were born at 40 weeks exactly, weights 6 pounds 8 and 7 pounds 8 and I am sure they were content (we called them the happy babies) because they were good weights, born when they wanted to come, not induced early and were fed on demand with lots of doting elder siblings to help. Large families are great.
I do recall some nights working until mid night, then they would wake for their mid night feed, feeding them, then coming back to my office to work until 3am, then feed them again, then I would sleep until 6am when it was time to get every one up for school. But those all night sessions are rare and lawyers run on adrenalin. I am afraid those kinds of sessions are actually quite exciting. I feel tremendously privileged to have so many sources of pleasure and excitement in my life, both professional and family related.
Looking at some general issues I breastfed and worked because I love my work. I never considered not working but I always wanted children, very very much. I love spending time with them. I breastfed them because it is right, natural, comfortable, easy, cheap, free, good for babies for all kinds of reasons and good for mothers too. It helped me lose weight after the births - I was always keen to look good and stay slim.
I found it easier with the twins working from home and having them brought to me to feed than when I commuted to the City and had to express milk. That was harder but even then I had no problem leaving my office for 20 minutes to express milk a few times a day. No fellow workers would really have known. [xx] are left to get on with things. I did not inconvenience anyone else at work. It did not disrupt the day any more than had I left for a quick cup of tea. I chose not to make a fuss about it. I just got on with it.
Our then nanny who cared for the children was happy to feed the children my breast milk from a bottle and surprisingly they never confused breast and bottle. Over 20 years of having children I have never once bottle fed a baby so perhaps they could always just associate me with breastfeeding. Obviously I explained before I hired our nanny that the baby was to be breastfed. Most English nannies are happy with that because they learn at college that breast is best.
I was perhaps protected from any negative influences by virtually never meeting other mothers with babies (apart from attending National Child Birth Trust classes when pregnant) so I never saw anyone bottle feeding. I was always happy to breastfeed in front of my family. There is very little that you need to see anyway, although it is impossible to breastfeed twins in the position I did it, when out and about, discreetly. We would lock ourselves in a feeding room if the need arose. It was no problem. My father is a psychiatrist and we were always a fairly open family about nudity and the like. So there were no hang ups there. I had always hoped to be criticised for breastfeeding in public so I could make some point about it but it never happened. Perhaps London is fairly liberal on these matters. Most mothers try to breastfeed in the UK. My sister breastfed her twins until they were at least two.
My decision to breastfeed and work was taken entirely by myself. I did not need a supporter or assistance over it. I just did it and with the twins of course I was working for myself which gives ultimate control and power. I might sometimes work 70 hour weeks but I decide when, where and how.
Advice I would give to other women is first to pursue the most intellectual challenging career that you can. The best advice my father gave us was to pick work we would love to do for the next 40 years. Secondly, it is perfectly possible to have a large family and work in professions such as mine. I have lots of friends in the City of London with large families who work - bankers, consultants, lawyers. Before you marry discuss and agree with your future spouse all these issues. It is that kind of work which makes the rest easier, which makes the hiring of people to help you possible, which means your time with the children can be spent playing, just sitting, watching their faces, cuddling, rather than trying to do too many domestic jobs at the same time.
On the combining work and breastfeeding issue I think the principal way to make it easy is to be good at your job. No one wants to lose a good worker. If you are indispensable and excellent, accommodations can always be made. If you whinge, take time off sick and do bad work then you are not going to advance the cause of women and work. Secondly be reasonable. Provide solutions to an employer, not problems. Scout around. Find a little used room. Decide if it is going to be feasible to have the baby brought in to feed or whether you will express milk. Decide if instead you would rather just breastfeed outside of working hours. It is not an all or nothing decision. Your milk supply would adjust to feeding before work, right after and then through the evening and night although that is not then exclusive breastfeeding and for me would not have been physically comfortable or felt right. Life is full of compromises. Try not to feel guilt whatever compromises you reach.
Check the law in your jurisdiction. In the EU/EEA there is substantial legal protection. Know the position before you approach an employer but remember psychology is the most important thing often, not law. Asking people about things in the right kind of constructive positive way is going to get you a lot further than quoting EU directive numbers at them.
Finally enjoy it all. Breastfeeding has been one of the most pleasurable things I had done. It is warm, comforting, intimate and nothing makes you closer to your child. Never believe anyone who says you cannot work and breastfeed. Women have always worked from the dawn of time and they have always breastfed too."