Workplaces going to be urged for private Breastfeeding areas

[HermyaAndThePomBears]

Here!

The government are going to give mothers the right to Brestfeed at work.

I don't know about anybody else, but I think this is great news.

[strawberrycake]

I had visions of feeding my babies in my classroom when I first saw the article. Or halfway through a literacy lesson 'Sorry, baby's hungry'.

[mamatomany]

I had visions of feeding my babies in my classroom when I first saw the article.

That might do more to increase the BF rates than anything else

[FortunateHamster]

mamatomany I don't drive and even our MD's office has glass in the door. I suppose I could find some way to cover the glass in the smallest office maybe.

[lilyliz]

just another reason for firms not to employ women of a certain age and TBH who can blame them,all the maternity laws are getting out of hand it will be nappy change time off next.What about the workers who pick up all the slack they get nothing,time for the childless to stand up and be counted and I bet if you did a company would offer some deal EG a day extra annual leave or such like.

[FortunateHamster]

Is it really out of hand to enable women to feed their babies, though? Should women have to express milk (which has to be kept in a sterile environment) in toilets? Perhaps companies shouldn't be forced to offer facilities, but I would think more of those that did.

I don't begrudge smokers their fag breaks, so as long as I can keep up with my work (which wouldn't get handed off to someone else), I don't see why someone else should begrudge me time to express.

[A1980]

I fear whilst a lovely idea - it's going to damage the work prospects of any woman aged
20-30.

I'm curious Alpine Pony. Do you mean that women above 30 don't have children? The majority of women at my work taking maternity leave are over 30.

[ClimberChick]

The offer of a place to feed the baby is that so SAHDs or babysitters can bring the baby into work for mother to feed. A lot of people here do that. In fact they thought I was the odd one out for expressing instead of DH bringing her in for me.

My work already has a room like this, plus have hospital grade pumps. I honestly don't think I'd have kept at it for as long without it. Went back when DD was 4 months and now is 9 months.

Ryoko: I can assure you it isn't a break. I am looking forward to when I don't express anymore. For most people it's a 20min break. It just makes me work more efficiently. I've always found anyway I get more work done if I have regular short breaks as it helps focus my mind and gets me out of the rut I'm in

[HollyBollyBooBoo]

This made me laugh so much, not because it is particularly right or wrong, but because company's have such a long way to go to get to this point...my MW was gobsmacked that there was nowhere in my company's Head Office to go and quietly have a break when I was pregnant, let alone somewhere private to express milk and then store it and this is an long standing High St name that employs about 100k people in the Uk - 87% of which are women!

[BaggedandTagged]

Did anyone see the fight debate on Sky News yesterday between a senior pro-bf GP and an academic who kept banging on about how promoting bf was making women feel bad?

Academic was very ranty/axe grindy but she did make one quite good point which was that given that 70% of women are no longer bf by 3 months, and most women are not back at work at that stage, will this legislation actually make women bf longer? (ie women are not stopping bf because it's difficult to bf at work).

As an earlier poster commented, I suspect these rules will make things more comfortable for women who would have bf anyway (in itself a good thing) but I'm not sure it will do anything for bf rates.

[otchayaniye]

I went back to work three days a week when my child was 15 months old and my husband looks after our child on those days (works nights when I'm at home) and he brought her in to my work at lunchtimes and we had lunch and fed her. My company already provided a nursing room but I chose not to use it and go to a cafe (I'm in canary wharf) instead. But it felt good to know there was somewhere in my office. When I was on sabbatical I took my child in a few times to meet colleagues and fed in the canteen while having a coffee.

At 15 months the midday feed wasn't strictly necessary but it was a good way to break up the day and help the transition as I eased back into work. We carried this lunchtime arrangement until she was about 19 months I think.

I can't see how this is Tory bollocks. Every little thing helps.

[otchayaniye]

Also, it depends on your employer.

I work for a company highly regarded for its diversity and maternity policies. That said, when I worked on assignment abroad those policies didn't quite stretch to overshadow local, more draconian back to work policies.

But my employer sees it as a long term issue. Most of my colleagues are lifers. I've been with the company 10 years. So a few years working 3 days is not seen as death to your career. My boss has had about 4 years off for maternity leave in the past 7 years and part time work between that and continues to rise to the top.

[StealthPolarBear]

This is related to the new maternity / paternity leave stuff (6 months for the mother and 6 months for the father) and presumably is to make it clear you don't have to stop at 6 months (or earlier, since most women start ML a couple of weeks before their baby is born).
The idea of bf at work is that the carer (dad) brings the baby to you - very impractical in most cases I imagine! My commute is 20mins, so that's a couple of 40 min round trips for DH every day, and my commute is short by most standards!

[StealthPolarBear]

at 6 months (5.5 months?) surely most babies are having more than one daytime feed?

[violethill]

I'm unclear why people would assume going back to work means giving up bf anyway?
I returned to work 3 days a week when dd1 was 12 weeks, and that was absolutely the norm back then- early 1990s- in fact within my circle of friends, we were always amazed if anyone could afford a 6 month ML as the final 3 months were unpaid. I carried on bf , no problem, its quite possible to do an early morning feed plus all the evening and night ones, plus expressing.

I totally agree that workplaces should provide facilities for expressing, but I cant see it bein convenient for most mums to have someone bring their child to them at work

[ClimberChick]

No extra facilities are required for baby to feed at work, so think of it as a added bonus. Think the focus is more on a practical expressing environment. Some people have babies that don't take bottles as well.

[HappyAsASandboy]

We're lucky enough to already have this provision. We have two 'Nursing Mother's Room', which the maternity policy stipulates is for pregnant people and new mothers to use to rest and/or express and/or feed their baby if it is brought in by a carer.

The rooms are about the size of a disabled loo, but have a fridge, steriliser, sink and armchair in.

I used the rooms most days during the last 6 months of pregnancy. My manager was completely supportive of this, as he'd far rather I took a half hour break or two during the day than not come in at all. Just the knowledge that I could go for a break kept me going into work far longer than I could have otherwise, which worked well for my company.

I think these facilities should be easy for large companies to provide (e.g. my building has over 2000 staff, so to find two small rooms is easy), but I can see why it would be harder for a small office building or a factory that is mostly open plan.

[peppapighastakenovermylife]

I quite often breastfeed my baby in work if I have popped in for a KIT day or to sort something when on mat leave and then afterwards if I have picked the baby up from nursery.

However I breastfeed in my office - I dont need a room. It has glass in the door. I have breastfed in meetings. No one has said anything!

Am an academic by the way so it is a different situation.

[peppapighastakenovermylife]

And drinking beer is the same as expressing milk?! Erm...the latter benefits the health of the child. In fact by allowing this perhaps parents will have less overall time off work.

And smokers here are always popping outside for 10 minutes ...

[pointydog]

'Urging' companies is fair enough. Many will not have the resources to provide a private room other than the toilets which is also fair enough.

[AlpinePony]

A1980 - Are you deliberately failing to see the point in question. I presume you do understand the message? Let's not argue about numbers, you know damn well what I meant.

[Simic]

I went back to work 20 hrs/wk when dd was not quite four months old. I was given a room to use for expressing milk for dh to give to her. I am really glad I got this as it would have been the toilet otherwise. However, I really wish that instead of that my boss had been more enlightened and hadn't put psychological pressure on me to go back to work so early. Even more, I wish that I had been educated/enlightened enough to realise that I didn't have to. Somehow despite (or as a result of) all my academic education, I missed out on learning that I wouldn't want to go back to work so early and more importantly: they couldn't force me to.
I fear that providing rooms for expressing milk will just give more young women the message that "the culture is" you don't take off longer than absolutely necessary when your baby is born.

[jugglingjo]

In 1999 my health visitor suggested that if I returned to work as a supply teacher and my DH looked after our baby, perhaps he could bring the baby to where I was working to feed (BF) her during breaks/ lunch hour
I did consider it, so anything to encourage and support with this I'm sure would be welcome.
BTW I decided to get a job as a nanny for two boys (P/T), where I could take my baby with me.
I did this from when she was six mths to a year.
Then we moved house/area anyway.

[ISNT]

Only just managed to access to article as internet been playing up.

I thought that there was already something saying that companies over a certain size had to / should (not sure which) provide somewhere for women to express and a fridge to store milk?

Also this bit i find strange "The Department of Health is working with several as yet unnamed private companies that will try out the scheme which, Lansley stressed, would involve no new costs for businesses." Sounds like in this current time of austerity some sorely needed NHS funding is going to be funnelled off to some private company that Lansley is mates with to do something really unnecessary

[JanetPlanet]

Lorraine Kelly has just gone down in my estimation when she compared breast feeding at work to nipping out for a fag. Yes, Lorraine, feeding a baby is exactly like skiving off for a fag

[ISNT]

DoH leaflet from 82007*:

"The Workplace Regulations
and Approved Code of
Practice require employers
to provide suitable facilities for
pregnant and breastfeeding
mothers to rest.
The Health and Safety
Executive (HSE) recommends
that it is good practice for
employers to provide a
private, healthy and safe
environment for breastfeeding
mothers to express and store
milk. It is not suitable to use
toilets for this purpose."

From here

Can anyone tell me why this bloke is announcing things as new deveopments when in fact they have already been in place for at least 3 years (the leaflet is from 3 years ago, I don't know when these things actually came in, could have been long before that).

I don't understand, it doens't make sense.

Is he going to announce next to a grand trumpeting that he is going to provide ante-natal care for all women in the UK? Going to allow people access to GPs for free? it's ridiculous.