Breastfeeding Discrimination

[MIVA]

Just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience or can give me any advice on being discriminated against for breastfeeding as a university student?
I'm currently in my second year of university, studying childhood studies.
I thought that especially because of the course I'm doing that I would receive loads of support from my tutors and uni however this has not been the case.
When I first informed the uni I was pregnant they failed to do a risk assessment until I was 2 weeks away from giving birth and at this meeting I was asked how I was planning to feed my baby when she was born. when I explained I wanted to breastfeed it was agreed that they would allow me to bring my daughter in to my lectures and seminars so long as she was not causing a disturbance.
I attended 1 lecture and 1 seminar in which the tutor didn't even notice I had my baby with me until just before the end of the seminar but after received an email to say they were putting me on home study and I wasn't to come back into uni until my daughter was of age to go into childcare. They said it was due to health and safety- not wanting loss of reputation or public condemnation but did not even offer the chance for me to discuss my options.
I said I would attend and express but the university don't offer any breastfeeding facilities and don't even have a breastfeeding policy or anything to do with breastfeeding unless your staff.
Can anyone help???

I'm currently breastfeeding so I understand your dilemma but I also see the other side.

University is so expensive, I don't think I'd be happy if someone was bringing their baby with them, despite what you say, it would be distracting, even just crying until they were fed. Also, in a couple of months baby will be sleeping a lot less and be noisy and in need of constant attention, so it really wouldn't be a long term solution. Perhaps others complained, particularly if they are having to pay for childcare etc?

They should however provide you with somewhere to pump, a toilet is not appropriate, it's very unhygienic and you may need a plug. Focus your efforts on this as it's easily solved and study at home in the meantime.

I'm amazed at how much you've been able to do with a newborn!

If the baby isn't disturbing anyone and no ones complaining then what is actually the issue

Maybe people are complaining, as OP has been told she can’t bring the baby to class any more and has to stay home until she can arrange childcare.

You've got at least one other child so you surely must know that you won't be able to bring the baby to class after a few weeks? It's a person with needs, not something you just carry around with you!

Good on you for studying and breastfeeding! But you must realise you need childcare?

mammytoo2 no one has shamed the OP for breastfeeding. Not every situation where people (quite rightly) point out that there is a conflict between what the OP wants and what is actually a reasonable expectation is “shaming”.

She’s been given advice on how to approach the expressing issue with her uni, and hopefully she gets that sorted out.

But expecting every tutor, lecturer and fellow student to simply accept her bringing her baby to every lecture, tutor groups and seminar for the foreseeable is not a reasonable expectation, and it does the OP a disservice to act as if it is.

She didn't actually give a time frame for how long she was planning on taking the baby in to the university just that she was planning on breastfeeding until the baby was 4 months by which time her circumstances could have change and she maybe able to express, leaving her baby at home.
If her module tutor told her it was okay then the staff would have had to be notified so if she wasn't informed of an issue before she returned then that's not her fault similarly if the module tutor hadn't informed the relevant staff that's also not her fault and therefore her expectation has been built from what "the man in charge" has led her to believe.
She's been shamed on several posts for misreading a policy and then by several other people for the fact that she believed due to being explicitly told it would be okay to breastfeed in lectures and then have it retracted.
Think rather than expressing the frustration that she has the balls to think it's okay in this day and age to breastfeed her baby at university as well as the cheek to ask for facilities to accommodate her we should be angry at the fact of how she's been mislead and mistreated as a result of that.
It's disgusting the university did all that over email and not face to face.

Yes, OP has been misinformed and given the run around by her university, which is shit.

But saying that it’s discrimination not to be able to bring her child to lectures is going to get people’s backs up, especially if those women have experienced actual discrimation during their education or in the workplace as a result of maternity leave or breastfeeding.

Op. If you were in my group I wouldn't feel comfortable saying to your face that I was unhappy with the presence of your baby.

But you can be sure I'd be discussing my concerns with my tutor. A baby is distracting and things will take longer.

I think there is a big difference between the occasional child care issue, and bringing a baby to every lecture.

Great that you want to breastfeed. I'm sure the university will have rooms/facilities for you to pump and store milk.

However I don't know of many formal childcare provisions that would take a baby under 12 weeks. So really the issue here is your poor planning as to what you would do during this time.

12 weeks is an entire semester. Really you should have suspended your. Studies at Christmas. Had the baby and then restarted next year.

It is classed as discrimination if the university isn't providing breastfeeding facilities or the facilities to express so she actually has experienced discrimination- your only looking at it from the point that she's wanting to take her baby into the lecture/ seminars there's a bigger picture and I hope she does go for discrimination due to lack of facilities and manages to get the university to introduce new policies and accommodate everyone.
Her baby's 4 weeks old she didn't say she was going to breastfeed forever

OP has been misinformed and given the run around by her university, which is shit

Sounds more like a misunderstanding in communication. Clarity wasn't obtained prior to the event.

I agree with Penny. Nobody has 'shamed' the OP for breastfeeding at all.
She is trying to demand to do something completely unrealistic and unfair on all the other students and lecturers on her course. People are pointing that out.
Of course breastfeeding a tiny baby is a good thing. It is a good thing to do whilst you focus all your strength and energy and love on that baby, on maternity leave. A baby is a human being though. It isn't a doll you can just pop in a bag when it isn't feeding, and concentrate on your tutorial / lecture / seminar. It is a little person with needs that can be met with a lot of attention - you know, the reason so many women have fought for protected maternity leave for so many decades.

She didn't demand it- it was offered by the university and she agreed too it, they then retracted that so it's not her fault. She's been made out to be this demanding selfish person and she's not, she acted on the advice she's been given and unfortunately it hasn't worked out and she was looking for some genuine advice on here.
It's not nice to be given information and then later find out that it's incorrect. Then factor into that that she's just had a baby is continuing to attend uni and do her work whilst also having another child to attend to. If I was her I'd be regretting ever putting something on here- no wonder she's stopped replying.
Students don't get maternity leave- as has been covered above so it's fantastic for women that work that maternity leave has been fought- not so fantastic for students

I agree with Sofa I would be speaking to the tutors if I was in the OP's lectures. Bringing the baby in as a one of is ok, but every day until she's old enough for child care isn't imo.

If the baby woke a few times to be fed that would have been quite disruptive, what about the nappy changes and winding was all that done during the lecture or did OP go out?

I think it's highly commendable that you want to carry on as if nothing has happened OP, but it's not practical or safe for Insurance purposes.

6.2 Students should not return to study within two weeks post-partum, in alignment with the statutory restriction of the same duration for women in employment. This period will not be considered as an absence by the University in its recording of student attendance.

Just out of interest, MIVA, if you hadn't misunderstood section 6.2 of your university's maternity policy, might you actually have done as Sofabitch suggested and arranged in advance to suspend yiur studies?

Students don't get maternity leave- as has been covered above so it's fantastic for women that work that maternity leave has been fought- not so fantastic for students

They have rights in that they can take a leave of absence and can return to study without being at a disadvantage. That’s easily google-able.

It’s not discrimination to not be able to bring your small child to university classes because you choose not to use childcare, home study or take a break from studying.

No one has come on and said that she’s a “demanding and selfish person”. Posters pointing out that her expectations aren’t reasonable is part and parcel of posting on an Internet forum.

Students don't get maternity leave

Of course they can take leave, and take up their studies when they are ready again. Happens to students throughout the country, on all sorts of course, every year, and has done for decades. There are lots of reasons you can take a break, and resume your course later - maternity leave being one of them.

Students don't get maternity leave
They do though. The policy OP quoted specifically says they can have a leave of absence. OP has chosen not to take the available leave.

If I was a fellow student or a lecturer I wouldn’t say anything to OP’s face but would definitely make a complaint about a baby attending lectures. I’m guessing the university has received such complaints as they’ve now told OP she can’t bring the baby any more. It sucks that she was wrongly informed but the module leader should never have suggested it would be ok to bring a baby to class.

But it doesn’t sound like the university has said she can bring the baby then changed their mind. It sounds like one thick module leader has made stupid promises that he doesn’t have the authority to make, and when the university found out they said “Erm, sorry but nope”.

*Op. If you were in my group I wouldn't feel comfortable saying to your face that I was unhappy with the presence of your baby.

But you can be sure I'd be discussing my concerns with my tutor. A baby is distracting and things will take longer.*

This.

You sound very inflexible OP.

No life isn't fair and I honestly completely understand about the laws and health and safety but they are legally required to provide facilities to accommodate breastfeeding which means that any insurance would therefore have to accommodate children on the premises.

Not necessarily in every place on the premises though. If you were studying science would you expect to be able to take the baby into a lab with you?

No life isn't fair and I honestly completely understand about the laws and health and safety but they are legally required to provide facilities to accommodate breastfeeding which means that any insurance would therefore have to accommodate children on the premises.

Providing facilities to accommodate breastfeeding - pumping milk, and nursing - is not the same as accommodating small children in all buildings on campus. In all universities I have worked out, there are private facilities for pumping and storing milk. Nursing of babies directly is only possible in the university nursery, or in other specific areas of campus (nanny/childminder brings the baby there). For insurance as well as health and safety reasons, children are not allowed in quite a few university buildings.

OP either take a break from your studies and care for your baby or get childcare. You can’t have it both ways!

No one’s ripping her apart mammy. Get a grip of yourself.

Your options are:

1. Defer/ suspend study/ take some time out (like maternity leave). If you can’t afford to do this because of student maintenance grants etc then that’s unfortunate, but that should have been a consideration whilst pregnant

1. Find childcare and push the university to provide you with expressing and storage facilities

1. Take up their offer of ‘distance’ study - you’re lucky they are being flexible to offer this, it may not be strictly speaking permitted but they could be bending rules for you to help here.

As others have said, you’re not being discriminated against (unless they refuse to provide you with expressing facilities) & unfortunately you misread the policy about returning.

Best of luck