Stop airlines charging women extra for travelling with expressed milk

[SantasBigHelper]

Please sign and share if you agree:

www.change.org/p/justine-greening-mp-allow-women-to-fly-with-expressed-breastmilk-free-of-charge

Whatever the motivations behind these responses, all I can tell you is the overwhelming message that's coming through to me from them seems to have a really dark subtext about not getting ideas above my station if I want to work, breastfeed and keep my child healthy.

You may read it that way, but I see it as practicality.

If you can't take a few months out of your life while your baby is young to have short trips so you only need to express smaller amounts which can go in hand luggage, then, perhaps, either the job, or the baby feeding method needs to change.

Many of us here work, travel, and BF young babies. We looked at our options, and picked the ones that would sensibly work - be that a nanny, travelling with the baby, short trips for 6 months, different method of transport, or formula. Rather than 'I'm alright Jack' it's that we've been there, thought it through, and on balance can't support the petition on that basis.

As to the cost - if an MP is paid 76k, if they work 40 hours a week, 48 weeks of the year (this may or may not be correct) then for every hour one MP spends looking at this issue, one more of these very rare women could have checked a bag. A checked bag that it is the responsibility of their employer to pay for if they are travelling on business.

"Men with young babies don't have to pay extra for hold baggage whereas breastfeeding women with babies the same age do."

Yes they do. If they are the ones transporting liquids. Because once outside the body, either sex can carry them.

And I just didn't see how you can be sure that milk has been stored at a safe temperature. Yes, I flew in business whilst still BFing. I discarded, because I was concerned about safe storage/temperature.

If the 'compromise' is packing a bit smarter so that you have the space to bring back what you know you'll be bringing back, that is no more than anyone who travels and knows they will bring back additional items. It is not unusual, it is not difficult and it is manageable by both men and women for all sorts of reasons.

Viking but a man with a young baby won't be generating breastmilk when away on a work trip, so they won't have any extra breastmilk to bring back with them compared to when they left.

On a work trip, this is the responsibility of your employer - it's not the airline's responsibility!

For all those pp who can't fathom how a system would work or how it could possibly be fair/feasible to expect the current system to change to accommodate a minority of women... 🙄 A system similar to what the OP is asking for already exists in the US.

There, breastfeeding mothers (or anyone else) can bring unlimited quantities of chilled or frozen breast milk in hand luggage, along with any necessary ice packs, so long as they are declared to security. Same goes for formula. It's regarded as part of the personal medicine category for the purposes or air travel and the same rules apply regardless of whether you're travelling with or without a child. There is no charge.

The OP's proposal is simpler, in that she only requests storage in the hold rather than the cabin. It shouldn't be a big deal.

You don't have to be the biological producer to be the one carrying it on a flight.

Once outside the body, anyone could take breast milk anywhere (maybe travelling with the infant, or travelling between mother's and baby's locations).

Viking yes, which is why the right to transport expressed milk without charge shouldn't be limited to women. Anyone should be able to transport it.

However, only lactating women accumulate expressed milk while away from their baby. Men do not and non-lactating women do not. When a lactating woman is charged baggage fees to transport her breast milk, it constitutes unfavourable treatment compared to if she hadn't been lactating. Both sex and maternity are protected characteristics in equality legislation, so yes: the current system is discriminatory.

Just because some lactating women are not bothered by it does not make it ok.

You say upthread All airlines in the U.K. charge extra for hold luggage on domestic flights
So is this just about UK domestic flights?

I was trying to understand.
You've accused me of bullying you.
I'm out. Have a good life.

The thing is, based on a baby's requirements of around 100ml/kg/day 1L of milk is probably an overestimate for most babies whose only source of nutrition is milk. Bigger babies are usually on some solids and will be ok on less, irrespective e of whether they'd prefer more.

If you're campaigning that, say, 3L needs to be transported, it'd be pretty hard to keep it frozen solid for the duration of a flight and most women wouldn't run the risk of refreezing. So, a 7kg 5 month old baby, for example, needs to get through 4 days' worth (or so) of expressed milk to make it worthwhile, but, from memory, defrosted milk needs to be consumed pretty quickly.

Meanwhile, the lactating mother is not actually breastfeeding her baby - which is best for maintaining supply - while the baby guzzles the litres of milk it was apparently essential to take on the plane.

Have you contacted your local breastfeeding authority to ascertain whether they think it would be safe to refreeze the milk that's gone through the whole airport palaver?

That's also why using the case of the woman who needed to dump 14 L of milk isn't a good idea- there's no way that milk, some of which was weeks old, would have been considered safe.

I think lasswi has no grasp of facts and has a typical tory voter mentality of 'I don't do that/pay for that why would anyone else'

Wow glad you know the voting intentions of all voters.

For the record some of the most selfish people I know are Labour voters.

That's also why using the case of the woman who needed to dump 14 L of milk isn't a good idea- there's no way that milk, some of which was weeks old, would have been considered safe

Imagine if I came on here, and said that I'd been buying a 6 pinter every day I was on my travels, kept them in the fridge, and was planning to keep them frozen with freezer packs for the journey home in the hold (or my hand luggage), to drink when I got home. I would be called insane. Yet doing this to feed a young baby is apparently a good idea!

This is the major part for me - I just don't think that carrying litres of milk around on airplanes is a good idea.

I think the reason they have it in the US is because they have such terrible maternity provision. They've decided that it's better to have women go back to work but not give flexibility around that so they have to express and travel, than give them the right to accommodations at work so they can continue to breastfeed their young baby.

I prefer the second approach to the first.

Meanwhile, the lactating mother is not actually breastfeeding her baby - which is best for maintaining supply - while the baby guzzles the litres of milk it was apparently essential to take on the plane

Good point. Presumably before going on the trip the bf mother has to pump furiously to produce enough milk to feed the baby whilst she is away.

Once she is back she will presumably be providing her baby with new, fresh milk direct from her rather than days old frozen/ defrosted/ no idea whether it has been properly stored or not, old expressed milk from a bottle.

So the milk expressed whilst she was away to keep supply up could easily have been discarded at that point.

I exclusively expressed for my my 2 and 4 year olds and part expressed for my 1 year old.

There is only 13 months between the older two so at "peak" production I was expressing 2 litres a day. I did it because it was really important to me that they got breast milk even though the older two were badly tongue tied

It was just easier with the baby to do a mix of expresse breast milk and traditional breast feeding as she wa number 3.

I took empty bottles through in my hand luggage on various ocassions - no problem

I'm a devoted expresser but, honestly, lugging this milk back which could be defrosting etc or you're not sure has frozen properly? Really? Total health hazard.

I would have broken the duck and given formula rather than do that because I would havwralksed that - underneath it all - this wa much more about my need to give breast milk rather than what is in the babies' best interest (is not to receive potentially hazardous milk)

I'm an employment lawyer by trade so - I don't think - a natural discriminator. But this really should not be encouraged for health and safety reasons. I would be concerned if I acted for the airlines that potentially there could be a claim if they were aware that breast milk was being transported in sub-optimal conditions with the clear intent to give it to a baby.

broken the duck is this a phrase I've never heard or a typo? In any case.. I think I like it.

I think some of the annoyance comes from the fact that this seems like an issue that can only exist if an amazingly rare set of circumstances happen.

Woman is self employed, decides to work when her child is still BFing, has to travel repeatedly with small breaks, child is exclusively BFing, she can express, baby will take bottles. Then, she has to take large amounts which affect the weight (I'm normally well under and could carry more), airline is sniffy about it (I've found them very helpful), she has a method of keeping these large amounts of milk safe (how?) and uses these (by now refrozen?) quantities of milk safely.

Now I'm all for pressing for change on things that affect women. And not waiting for one change to happen before another. But the wage gap affects millions. And lots of them in poverty, one wage and supporting families.

broken the duck is this a phrase I've never heard or a typo? In any case.. I think I like it

It's a sporting phrase. Where a player has had a zero score and finally scores- they have broken the duck- leading to doing something for the first time.

On this whole topic having seen nolongersurprised's post I cannot see why there would be any need to transport old milk back.

Ffs, there's a lot of misinformation on this thread about breastmilk storage. It's not a health hazard to transport expressed milk by plane if you store it correctly, and it's not hard to store it correctly.

Fresh breastmilk can be safely stored in a fridge after pumping for 3-8 days. It can be safely stored in a cool box/bag at up to 15 deg C for up to 24 hours. No problem going from door to door (e.g., hotel fridge to home fridge) flying across the UK, or indeed across Europe, within that timescale.

Frozen breastmilk can be safely stored for 6 months. A good cool box with ice packs can keep anything frozen solid for up to 24 hours. And actually, it doesn't affect the safety of frozen breast milk if it thaws slightly in transit: so long as there are ice crystals in the milk, it remains at freezing temperature and can be safely returned to the freezer without affecting its storage time. No problem going from door to door across most of the world within that timescale.

If an individual personally doesn't feel comfortable transporting expressed milk, that's her decision, but the guidelines and evidence are pretty clear that it's easily possible.

I'm with Gobblo and ChocChoc on this.
You are very very wrong to assume the milk would be frozen for most of the journey.

There isn't a hope in hell that the process from checking in to disembarking is a controlled temperature and remotely safe for keeping large quantities of milk properly stored for hours on end.

You'l be checking a bag in at least an hour before you fly. The bag could then be stored at room temperature before being loaded. Or it could go into a metal container which could sit out on the tarmac in 25 degree heat for an hour. And then depending on which part of the hold the container is loaded into, it could be held at nearly freezing, or it could be closer to room temperature.

Then when you land, the containers could spend more time on the tarmac in blazing sun or freezing cold, before the bags are loaded onto the carousel.

I can't actually get my head around anyone who would then willingly feed this milk to a baby

I did a lot of milk storage. And transport. My DD had taken over 30 flights by the time she was about three. And I do more for work and because I live in another country.

I'm not saying it's not possible at all. I'm saying it adds to the list of unlikely things that have to happen for this to be an issue. I mean 14 litres of BM in luggage?!? What hotel has room for that in the tiny fridge? Let alone being able to freeze it there. And 14 litres might well not freeze in the hold. That's a lot of liquid. If it does, great, because it will likely stay frozen.

I never had any issue with empty bottles or getting airlines to give me a break as a lactating mother. They were all fine with expressed milk.

I'm really confused. If you follow the links on the page you posted originally then it says:

"Formula, breast milk and juice in quantities greater than 3.4 ounces or 100 milliliters are allowed in carry-on baggage and do not need to fit within a quart-sized bag. Separate formula, breast milk and juice from other liquids, gels and aerosols limited to 3.4 ounces. You do not need to travel with your child to bring breast milk.

Ice packs, freezer packs, frozen gel packs and other accessories required to cool formula, breast milk and juice are allowed in carry-on. If these accesories are partially frozen or slushy, they are subject to the same screening as described above. You may also bring gel or liquid-filled teethers, canned, jarred and processed baby food in carry-on baggage. These items may be subject to additional screening."

Where is the problem? Or is it just that you can't fit anything else in your carry on so need to be able to transport more?

It can be safely stored in a cool box/bag at up to 15 deg C for up to 24 hours.

15 degrees is the cold end of room temperature. You'd use breastmilk that had been sat on the side in a cold-ish kitchen for 24 hours?

geek the Australian Breastfeeding Association says that freshly expressed milk should be used within 72 hours, not 8 days. I accept that that differs from the kellymom site although that also says that use within 72 hours is ideal. Is there a UK site?

But the main issue is whether frozen milk can be kept frozen throughout the flight process and then safely placed in the home freezer. If not, and it defrosts on the way it needs to be defrosted fully in the fridge and used within 24 hours. Which is a lot of milk for a baby to drink in a day.

I don't understand what kellymom means by the statement that it's ok if there's some ice crystals as when I've defrosted breast milk there's a mixture of still frozen, icy bits and liquid milk until it's fully defrosted. That's what happens when solids melt, a mixture of ice crystals and liquid before it completely becomes liquid.

You're very confident that frozen milk could remain frozen over the duration of a flight and that's fine but not everyone shares your confidence that milk could go from the freezer in the hotel to the freezer at home safely, without defrosting on the way.