The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog

Federal court: "The law does not punish lactation discrimination" in the workplace

A federal court in Texas has ruled against a mother who was fired from her job for attempting to pump at work, Courthouse News Service reports.

The case involved a complaint filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Houston Funding on behalf of Donnicia Venters, a mother who says she was fired when she expressed her desire to pump at work when she returned from maternity leave.  The company maintains that she was fired because she had abandoned the job.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes ruled in favor of the company, stating that, "firing someone because of lactation or breast-pumping is not sex discrimination" under current law.

Courthouse News Service reports:

"Even if the company's claim that she was fired for abandonment is meant to hide the real reason - she wanted to pump breast-milk - lactation is not pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition," Hughes wrote.

"The law does not punish lactation discrimination," the three-page opinion states.

It appears to me that Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney's bill, the Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2011 would remedy this problem, as it amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "to protect breastfeeding women from being fired or discriminated against in the workplace."

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Protests planned at Facebook offices around the world on Monday

Mothers are organizing nurse-ins at Facebook offices in California and around the world to protest the company's removal of breastfeeding photos from members' pages (and in some cases suspension of their accounts).  The events are to take place from 10:00 to 1:00 on Monday, February 6th.

The protests are related to the case of Emma Kwasnica, a Vancouver mother.  The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

For Vancouver mother Emma Kwasnica, a breast-feeding advocate and a protest organizer, the sour milk for her began in 2007, when she joined Facebook. In the five years she’s had an account, she has had about 30 of her photos flagged as inappropriate and her account shut down four times — once for 30 days.

“This is discrimination,” she said. “There’s no other way to look at it. We’re being treated as pornographers. Breast-feeding moms, especially ones with infants, spend hours a day with their children at their breast. They’re not trying to be sexually explicit. This is just part of their everyday lives.”

The protests are being organized, naturally, on Facebook, and you can see a list of locations here.  Below you'll find a teaser video about the protests, and a podcast on this topic at the Motherlove Blog.

Here are some pictures from a similar but much smaller event I attended a few years ago in Palo Alto. 

"[Stuff] people say to breastfeeding mothers"

In case you haven't heard (and if I've heard about it then you must have a long time ago) there is a wildly popular "[Stuff] people white girls say to black girls" YouTube video.  It has been endlessly parodied. 

Thanks to Free to Breastfeed, here is the "[Things] people say to breastfeeding mothers" version.  The one that made me crack up:  "Isn't it hot?"  I'm not sure why.  Have you heard any of these?

No breastfeeding because of the rotavirus vaccine? President of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine responds.

You may have seen on other blogs or on Facebook that CDC scientists recently authored a study suggesting that mothers stop breastfeeding to make the rotavirus vaccine more effective (other people's characterization, not mine).  I overheard it being discussed at a mom's group last week. 

Fortunately, the president of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, the organization representing physicians knowledgeable about breastfeeding, posted a response on the organization's blog. Thanks to Best for Babes for the tip!

It's a complicated issue and I'll leave it to the post to explain it all, but the bottom line is:  Don't panic, don't stop breastfeeding, don't storm the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.  In short, as this war-time parody poster says, Keep Calm and Nurse On.

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Poll: Where did you birth?

NPR reported last week that the rate of home birth has increased pretty dramatically in the last few years (up 25% between 2004 and 2009).  It's still a very small percentage of the total births, less than 1%, but the increase is still notable.

Why the increase?  NPR identified mothers' concerns about the record high c-section rate and liberal use of interventions as one driver of the increase.  One of my (hospital) midwives suggested that the lack of access to VBAC was driving more moms to birth at home.  And when I interviewed Jennifer Block, the author of Pushed, for a podcast on the Motherlove Blog she attributed part of the increase to the Ricki Lake movie, The Business of Being Born.

In any case, when I heard that piece it occurred to me that, while I've posted many polls, I've never asked you where you birthed.  So below is a poll asking just that.  You can vote more than once if you've had more thanone baby.  Me?  2 hospital births.

"Big Momma breastfeeds me, too"

What do you think of this PSA?

I think it should get points for originality and for acknowledging the influential role of grandmothers and dads, especially in the African American community.  I also like that the family is laughing at times.  The image of the grandmother feeding the baby by bottle at the end was momentarily confusing for me, but all in all I like it.

Tandem nursing too obscene for Funny or Die?

Funny or Die, a site known for sophomoric humor (including full frontal male nudity) apparently got a little light-headed from seeing a video of a mom tandem nursing her twins.

Funny or Die found the video by a comedienne and mother of twins Ahna Tessler, which (you are hereby warned), is laced with profanity, too risque and suspended the account of its creator.

The New York Times reported:

On the afternoon of Jan. 14 Ms. Tessler reached out to Funny or Die in a public area of the site, noting that the video had not been posted and that another video she had previously published was missing. That evening a site administrator replied, “Sorry, but your latest video got flagged as obscene, and we removed your account in response.”

When Ms. Tessler wrote back to say she “had no idea you couldn’t swear” on the site, the response was, “It was the breast-feeding video, not swearing.”

Funny or Die later reinstated the account and stated, “Funny or Die supports breast-feeding in all forms, especially among consenting adults.”  Which is kinda funny, I have to admit. 

Ahna Tessler told the New York Times that nursing twins is "the hardest thing I’ve ever done...I have to find the humor in this because it’s so insane right now, the amount of work and how exhausting it is.”

It's a strange world in which Funny or Die can't handle breastfeeding but the Catholic Church wants to see more of it.

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Study: Pumping method affects milk composition for preterm infants

Following on their study on milk volume and method of expression, which showed that a combination of pumping and hand expression (a technique termed "hands on pumping") yields more milk for preterm infants, a team at Stanford University School of Medicine has shown that pumping method also affects milk composition.

The study, led by Dr. Jane Morton, found:

The researchers’ findings confirmed that moms [of very preterm infants] who used hands-on pumping had higher fat content in their milk than women relying on electric pumps alone...

“People have suspected that mothers would be able to get more fat-rich milk with hands-on pumping but it’s never been demonstrated before,” said Jane Morton, MD, a community pediatrician who was the new paper’s first author. The suspicion arose because milk composition changes during a feeding, shifting from more-dilute milk at first to richer, higher-fat “hindmilk” at the end. Because of its high fat content, the hindmilk is more viscous, which may explain why it’s difficult to remove this milk with an electric pump alone. But extracting more high-fat hindmilk could give preemies an important calorie boost.

Dr. Morton says that her next research question is whether this higher-fat milk is sufficient to meet preemies' needs without the use of human milk fortifier.  This fortifier, with the exception of the human-milk product made by Prolacta Bioscience, is made from cow's milk.  Cow's milk products have been shown to increase the risk of the life-threatening condition necrotizing enterocolitis.

Another question many moms may have is whether the same applies for full term infants.  Here's a post I wrote on two different methods of hand expression, in case you'd like to conduct an experiment of your own!

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A motorcycle courier for pumped milk

I thought that this idea was pretty original:  A business in Indonesia has begun to offer a courier service for pumped breastmilk.

The service was launched in 2010 by Fikri Nauval, owner of a cargo and document shipping business, who said he was inspired by his wife's using one of his motorcycle riders to send her breast milk home to their baby after she had to return to work.

He charges 30,000 to 40,000 rupiah ($3.30 to $4.40) a trip, keeping track of traffic conditions and the best routes for drivers to take using a GPS map on a computer.

Pretty expensive, especially for a developing country, but I guess for some babies only the best will do!

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Why "normalizing" breastfeeding matters.

In a week when we're hearing a lot about breastfeding on Sesame Street, including statements of support by some top pediatricians, I wanted to share one of my favorite videos on the power of conformity.

The point is that if mothers perceive breastfeeding as normal (what everyone is doing) they're more likely to feel comfortable doing it.  And they're less likely to be harrassed at Target or get flack from their employers when they need to pump.  Getting breastfeeding back on Sesame Street would be one step in the direction of "normal."

I love this video and the point it makes about what happens when people perceive what's normal.  Please "like," share on Facebook, Tweet, share, forward, etc. if you do, too!

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