World Breastfeeding Week's Theme: Making a Difference for Working Parents

August 1st marked the beginning of National Breastfeeding Month, as well as World Breastfeeding Week!

It's an exciting time for those of us in lactation as we get to celebrate the achievements made in the past, as well as reflect on what we need to do to continue to improve breastfeeding rates throughout the nation and world.

Each week of the month has a different theme, and this week's is "Enabling Breastfeeding – Making a difference for working parents."

With this theme in mind, I thought I would share my own experience as a first time mom returning to work -

- hint... it wasn't great.

In 2016 I was still a college instructor at two local schools - one a private university and the other a community college teaching communication courses.

And as an adjunct instructor (aka, I could only work part-time at each school, but had a full-time load of work with no benefits), I didn't have access to any paid time off. 

So since A. was a June baby, I had the choice to go back to work at 9 weeks postpartum or take the entire fall semester off with no pay. And of course, I had to decide months before giving birth. 

I chose to go back in the fall because how hard could it be, right?

I'll be honest, I really didn't give ANY thought to pumping.

That was until I came to campus one hot August day to prep for class and realized that my shared office with a windowed wall was not going to work...

...and so ended up in my car because I had no idea where else to go.

I had two male supervisors, who were lovely and very supportive when I came to them with my dilemma; however, their solution was not great:

A storage room where I had to crawl under the desk to plug in my pump and was constantly nervous someone was going to come in because everyone had a key.

I was quite surprised that a college as large as ours didn't have a single designated pump room on campus like my other university had.

And so, I made it my mission to get a pump room.

How hard could it be, right?

To save time, let's just say, this is the first picture my husband sent me when I went back to work 9 weeks postpartum and he started his paternity leave:

And this was her two years later in August 2018 when I managed to get not one, but TWO mother's rooms on campus.

It took over a year of nagging and asking and pushing to finally get approval for funds.

And another year to have them actually completed.

And honestly, my own inquiries as a faculty member weren't what did it.

One day I saw a student with a baby on campus and asked her if she nursed and how she navigated pumping while in class.

She wrote an email of her own difficulties, including having to self express into the toilet (which I had to do once too because I forgot my pump and still had a 3 hour class to teach).

Sending her story to the Dean of the department, the Dean of Students, and the President of the school was what it took to get a simple private space to pump with a door that locked on the inside, a comfortable chair, and a plug that was not under the desk.

So that storage room I showed you above? It was replaced with this:

And this little area here - which was the only other place suggested to me to pump that was just outside a women's restroom -

It was transformed into this:

I brought A. with me to show her the room and celebrate with her by having a nursing session in it.

By then I was no longer pumping, but I knew it would be there waiting for me when I had more kids - and it was!

But I didn't just do it for me.

I did it for every nursing parent on campus so they felt comfortable while pumping and that they had value - more than being shoved in a storage closet.

I know this was long, and if you're still reading, thank you for following along.

Obviously there are a lot of big changes that still need to be made for working parents who breastfeed on a national level...

... like paid leave!

... but each of us can choose to make changes in our own organizations that will benefit those who come after us so that they can have it a little easier.

Until next time, 

Happy Nursing!

Erin