We want to share this message with everyone who comes into contact with pregnant women, mothers and babies. This includes employers, unions, professional and trade organizations, human resource professionals, worksite wellness managers, community based organizations, advocacy groups, businesses, day care providers, faith-based organizations, medical professionals, public health officials, mothers groups, friends, relatives, neighbors, and colleagues, the individuals who we interact with every day. It takes everyone working together to get the word out and make San Francisco a family friendly place to live, work and raise healthy children.
Breastfeeding accommodation is good for babies and for business. Breastfeeding has a long list of protective factors. For businesses it provides an incentive to keep your work force over time and thrive. The 21st century workplace promotes and supports family friendly environments including lactation accommodation, day care services, wellness promotion, helping us all to achieve a balance between work and family life.
PARTNERS WORKING TOGETHER SHARING EXPERIENCES
Here are some updates from our partners at the United States Federal Building and the San Francisco Department of Public Health examples of how working together can make a difference.
April 23, 2009, Allen Ng, Western Regional Administrator of the USDA, Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) celebrated the grand opening of the Lactation Room at the San Francisco Federal Building on Seventh Street by hosting a ceremonial ribbon-cutting with other federal agency representatives. Lactation Room committee members (employees who work in the building) include staff from Office on Women’s Health, Administration for Children and Families, other agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Labor (DOL). The room is equipped with three hospital grade pumps. Attachment kits are offered to first-time users for free. DOL contributed funds to build the three pumping stations of the FNS-funded room, allowing more federal employees and their families to benefit from continued breastfeeding. Since its official opening, on average twoto- three women use the room at any given time throughout the year. The committee is working on identifying a system to make the room available to building visitors. The building also houses a day care center where mothers can nurse their infants during the work day. If you work in the Federal Building on Seventh Street and want to learn more about the lactation room contact Lissa at 415 705-1313; if you want to learn more about the Kids by the Bay Child Care Center contact Shelley Marquez at 415552-8100 or
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Or you can visit the website for Kids by the Bay www.cclc.com.
San Francisco Department of Public Health, Maternal Child Adolescent Health Section, has a Breastfeeding Room available to City and County employees in the Civic Center area. Situated in a quiet corner directly across from the restroom, the lactation room has good lighting and a large comfortable sofa, a refrigerator for nursing mothers to store pumped milk. There is a music system (cassettes and CDs) for mothers to play their favorite music as they pump. There are also posters featuring breastfeeding mothers and babies, and educational pamphlets on breastfeeding benefits, techniques and hints on pumping/storing breast milk.
“I really enjoyed pumping milk in that comfortable room; I didn’t need to pump in a cubicle at work. I had been pumping in a cubicle until someone told me about this room. I enjoyed the convenience of having the refrigerator to store my pumped milk.” said a breastfeeding city and county employee who used the lactation room. If this oasis is a surprise to you, and you are a city and county employee who would like to use the room now or in the future contact Grace Yee 415.575.5743,
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WHAT WE NEED TO ACCOMPLISH LACTATION ACCOMODATION
Women need safe, clean, private spaces to pump breast milk or feed their infants at work or at infant day care, as well as a clean place to store pumped milk. Women need breaks in their work day to facilitate nursing or pumping.
Adequate milk production (supply) is dependent upon the demand of the infant feeding or the mother pumping. Equal access means healthier babies, fewer health disparities, less time lost from work. Equitable accommodation
means you have a much better chance to keep your best and most seasoned employees who know your business and care about your customers and clients.
Even with the Lactation Accommodation Law in California, and a provision for lactation accommodation in the new federal health reform legislation, it is our job to make the law work for all women. As important as the law is, the enforcement provision in the California law is in response to maternal complaint. It takes time and proactive research and action to make the law work for every woman who wants to continue nursing after returning to work. The more we know and share, the more women will be successful, the more businesses will know how to make accommodation work for their employees.
The gold standard endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and other professional organizations is six months of exclusive breastfeeding, and continuation
through the child’s first birthday, and beyond. Working with employers of all sizes is necessary to support and reach the AAP and AAFP goals for healthier infants. Working with employers allows us to educate about “The Business Case for Breastfeeding”. Click here to access the link on website and learn more about the business case. Having easy to find and use lactation accommodation encourages breastfeeding duration.
WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE
We want to share information about lactation accommodation with you; and we would like you to share information with us to make our lactation networks stronger, friendlier, and easier to find and use.
To achieve our goals for breastfeeding in the 21st century, the San Francisco Breastfeeding Promotion Coalition is collecting information from pregnant women planning to breastfeed, women who are or have pumped or nursed at work, and human resource professionals and business owners and managers who can share workplace accommodation experiences at their worksites, and unions that have assisted their members in ensuring accommodation. Right now the San Francisco Breastfeeding Promotion Coalition is engaged in an on-going needs assessme to we can better understand the landscape of breastfeeding accommodation in San Francisco.
Click here to access and fill out mother's surveys. Click here to access and fill out workplace surveys. Share this website with friends and colleagues, and your human resource department, manager, or union representative so they can access and submit the appropriate survey. Become a partner in workplace lactation accommodation.
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