Diana Ogden encourages businesses to allow breast-feeding in the workplace.

Ms. Ogden knows what can happen when mothers are discouraged.

“I had a client who said her boss would not let her pump breast milk anywhere in the business,” she says. “She’d have to go out to her car, in 110-degree weather. What a horrible thing.”

As a site supervisor and nutritionist with the Maricopa County Department of Public Health, Ms. Ogden is determined to erase the stigma associated with breast-feeding in the workplace. She’s not alone.

The Arizona Department of Health Services has initiated a breast-feeding program to address issues and increase the practice though education, awareness and policy change. The program promotes breast-feeding as the superior method of feeding infants and young children in order to build their immunity to disease and help form strong, straight teeth.

The American Academy of Pediatrics considers breast-feeding to be “the ideal method of feeding and nurturing infants.”

To advocates like Ms. Ogden, that message, however universal in acceptance, isn’t always acknowledged — particularly in the workplace.

In her own experience, Ms. Ogden works for an agency that not only supports the idea of nursing in the workplace, but promotes it.

“The best thing is that I work for the public health department. So it was about walking the talk,” Ms. Ogden says. “The director of public health has always been a big supporter of breast-feeding.”

A sampling of agencies and businesses that support or maintain policies that allow nursing in the workplace include the Arizona Department of Health Services, Maricopa County Public Health and Intel.

Healthier Babies

Nursing advocates say breast-feeding lowers health care costs because babies are healthier. The practice of allowing women to pump or even nurse at the office also lowers employee sick leave and turnover and increases job productivity and satisfaction.

In addition, companies that allow moms to nurse earn a reputation of catering to working women with children.

“It’s good public relations, and good for the company reputation,” says Ms. Ogden. “The company that promotes breast-feeding builds goodwill.”

Some nursing mothers face ill will by employees who resent what they perceive as special treatment. “It’s very challenging without the support of supervisors and coworkers,” says Sabina Allen, marketing director for the Office of Chronic Disease Prevention and Nutrition Services, with ADHS. “It’s an attitude of ‘There she goes again.’ You feel that it’s too much of a challenge to continue breast-feeding, and you lean towards stopping.”

Statistics from the year 2000, the latest year available, report that 78.6 per cent of Arizona women breast-feed their babies at birth. That number drops to 36.4 per cent who are still breast-feeding at six months.

Curbing that trend is the mission of the Department of Health Service’s program, which began in 1998. In 2001, the movement became incorporated as a not-for-profit organization. Coalition members are affiliated with a variety of agencies and organizations throughout Arizona, representing many professions. The program focuses on breast-feeding in work sites and schools, support and public policy.

Ms. Allen, who has been with ADHS for eight years and breast-fed a child during that time, recalls when acceptance of breast-feeding at work was minimal — even compared with today’s standards.

“In 1998 I was breast-feeding, and I pumped at work,” she says. “Thank God I didn’t have to go into the bathroom, but I had a cubicle, so I used a manager’s office to pump twice a day.” She used breaks and lunch periods. But even so, there were those who frowned on the practice at the office. “It wasn’t easy at all. I did not have good support at work for this.

“It’s up to management to provide (support),” Ms. Allen says. “Because if you’re getting negative vibes from co-workers, it impacts you deeply… At least with a policy, you have a fighting chance.”

The policy at the Department of Health Services is one of few — and perhaps the only one. At ADHS, mothers not only can pump breast milk at work, but they may also bring their babies to the office for up to six months. “They can breast-feed as often as needed, and it’s great,” Ms. Allen says.

Helps Retain Workers

The department has two mothers nursing babies at the office, and a third is on the way. Such flexibility is not only good for the employee, Ms. Allen says, but also instills greater loyalty among the work force. And so far, it hasn’t interfered with the work.

“I think that in the back of everyone’s mind, people were thinking ‘Will she do it in a meeting? Will it be uncomfortable?’” says Ms. Allen. “But, as time has gone by, it’s not been an issue. No one is exposing breasts in the workplace. I don’t think anyone is afraid of that anymore.”

Amanda L. Watkins, education program specialist with the state Office of Nutrition, admits that she didn’t expect her office’s breast-feeding program to go as well as it did when she first took part in it three-and-a-half years ago. At that time, it had been discussed at the state level, and Watkins’s department decided to pilot a program “to provide a lead in this area of policy.”

Following the example of a similar program at Maricopa County, the nutrition office allowed several mothers to bring their newborns to work. “It was definitely an interesting experience,” Ms. Watkins recalls. When she brought in her daughter, Abigail, she found herself pleasantly surprised at the ease with which her co-workers handled it.

“Everyone was very helpful,” she says. “We all wanted to see the policy succeed, so there were always a dozen hands available to assist.” As she became more adept at working with her daughter in tow, Ms. Watkins began attending meetings and conferences, and even brought the baby along to a court case.

“It worked out very well,” she says. “Initially, I couldn’t have envisioned it working so well, but it truly did.” Abigail was about eight weeks old when Ms. Watkins began taking her to work. She stayed until she was about six months old, after which time Ms. Watkins left work for a year. “There was no part-time option for me,” she says. “But that’s changed, and there is now a part-time option with a job share — another good policy for working families.”

Had the breast-feeding policy not been available, however, the outcome would have been much less positive, she says — both for her family and for the state. “I have been working in the nutrition field for about 13 years,” Ms. Watkins says. “So these options kept me in the work force. I didn’t leave permanently and take my education, experience and training that the state had invested in me away from the workplace. It’s a benefit not only for the employee, but the employer, as well. They didn’t have to recruit, hire and train another person.”

Lee Renda, team leader for Maternal Child Health Nutritionists and Ms. Watkins’s supervisor, says the policy that allowed her to bring her children to work — Ms. Watkins now has her second child, Matthew, at the office – has been beneficial all around. “More employees are staying when they have children, because of this policy,” she says. “It’s such important work, and it’s great that they can stay and be productive at their job. It’s enab
led them to do that.”

And while such initiatives involve a shift in office logistics, the changes aren’t really that great, Ms. Renda says. “I don’t think that this is a difficult thing to put in place. If you’re setting up a lactation room, it’s a room, with a chair and a sink and fridge, etcetera. It doesn’t take much to do this — just the commitment to do it.”

“As the health organization that champions the benefits of breast-feeding for moms, babies and employers, we believed we needed to lead the way when we designed our new office,” says Margaret Tate of the ADHS Office of Nutrition and Chronic Disease Prevention Services.

“We’re constantly encouraging Arizona moms to breast-feed for at least 12 months, even after they return to work or school, so we wanted to make sure we created a special environment that allowed them to do that in a comfortable and private setting.”

Ms. Tate suggests the following be included in a nursing room:

• A sink for washing hands before and after nursing or expressing breast milk

• A refrigerator to store the milk after pumping

• Comfortable chairs

• A private and secure environment, ideally with a lock and window coverings, if windows are part of the room

Employers can go the extra mile by including a breast pump for employees, she said.

While the ADHS included nursing rooms in its new facility plans, employers can easily modify an existing space to accommodate a nursing room. “We want all Arizona employers to know just how easy it is to set aside a dedicated area for nursing women. While breast-feeding has many health benefits for women and their babies, it also carries many benefits for employers, including increased productivity and decreased sick days,” Ms. Tate concludes.

Jenny Lipinski, an employee benefits technician with the City of Mesa, is grateful that her employer responded to her need to pump breast milk for her baby. The City of Mesa does not have an official breast-feeding policy, so Ms. Lipinski had to forge ahead on her own. Before she had her baby in April, she discussed her options with her supervisor. Eventually, they settled on a file room, where she could use her breaks to use a breast pump to express milk for her daughter.

“If my supervisor had not been supportive,” Ms. Lipinski says, “I’d have done it on my lunch hour, or in my car, as I’m very committed to giving my baby breast milk.”

Chris Dotts, a marketing manager with Intel Corporation, says she felt some trepidation at the thought of balancing breast-feeding needs with the demands of her job, which includes travel across the Western U.S. Originally, she’d planned to take three months maternity leave with her baby, during which time she would breastfeed. After that, she’d be back at work and the baby would have moved to formula.

“But I started feeling like I wanted to reconsider, as the breast-feeding was going so well,” she says. “So I began looking closely at the options at Intel for continuing to give my baby breast milk.” After talking with her manager, who was receptive to the idea, Ms. Dotts began using a designated mother’s room. She blocked off an hour a day to pump, and found that her schedule allowed her to continue her work while ensuring that her baby would have the benefits of breast-feeding.

“I don’t know if I would have succeeded without these working opportunities, because I wasn’t so passionate or committed initially. I would have weaned him before going back to work,” she says. “This situation afforded me the things I needed to continue.”

Ms. Dotts feels fortunate to have continued breast-feeding, and credits an accommodating company policy for making it a reality. “It would have been devastating to me, if I’d not been supported at work, and been faced with having to quit breast-feeding before I was ready.”

Not every company or agency allows new mothers to continue nursing. At Kyrene Unified School District No. 28, for example, mothers must address the issue with school principals.

With no written nursing policy in place at Kyrene, mothers can use a breast pump on the job only if it does not interfere with work. A woman whose principal refuses her request, however, would have the option of pursuing the matter with the district’s human resources department.

In other arenas, however, support is growing for the development of nursing and breast-feeding policies. The Governor’s Office, for example, is supportive of ADHS’s breast-feeding program. And program participants will continue to push for the sake of better health for children, and heightened morale for employees.

“We want to make sure that people are educated about the benefits of breast-feeding,” says Ms. Allen. “The environment needs to change to help keep families healthy.”

FYI

For more information about the Breast-feeding Campaign, including the benefits of breast milk, breast-feeding, and information about creating a workplace breast-feeding policy, go online at www.gobreast milk.org or contact the Arizona Department of Health Services at 602-542-1886.

ADHS is located at 150 N. 18th Ave., Suite 310, Phoenix, Arizona 85007. —