1511cf66_all_To_Action_on_Breastfeeding__Topic
[ID] 368 [Interest Areas] Health Care Provider [Comment] Thank you for this opportunity to comment on a new Call to Action. I'm a nurse-midwife who has worked for a number of years with women from communities of recent immigrants. These new Americans often have jobs in the service sector that carry few if any benefits. Some examples are fast-food restaurant workers, and hotel or office building cleaners. Many of these women come from cultures where breastfeeding is the norm and successfully breastfed one or more children before arriving in the United States. Then, somehow, the child(ren) born here don't get the benefit of their mother's milk and when one investigates why, one learns of these barriers put up by employers: 1. Having to choose between pumping/expressing and eating during meal breaks; 2. No other breaks during the work day for pumping/expressing; 3. Lack of proper storage facilities for pumped or expressed milk; 4. Lack of a clean and private place to express or pump; 5. Employers viewing requests for these basic amenities as 'troublemaking'. As you may imagine, when the woman in question is undocumented, there is no motivation on her part to try to improve her situation as in doing so she might easily lose her job. I bring this to your attention because I believe the stereotype of the working, breastfeeding mother is the manager/professional who manages her own time, can store her milk in an employees' lunchroom refrigerator, and may even have an office with a door that locks for privacy while pumping/expressing. It's a pretty picture, but it's not reality for many, many women, and they are the ones whose babies stand to reap the greatest benefit from being fed their mothers' milk. I urge, when policies/legislation are being formulated, that the framers not forget those mothers in the lowest level service jobs. Their babies deserve mother's milk just like those of middle and upper class mothers. Their employers must understand that and take action to make it possible. [Topic] 
Worksite Lactation Support, Onsite Child Care, and Milk Expression
Call To Action on Breastfeeding
Topic