Breastfeeding at Work

I heard in the news today that new provisions are being put in place to make it easier for nursing mothers to return to either part time or full time work. From 1 April 2009 employers will be required to provide facilities and unpaid breaks for employed women wanting to breastfeed their babies or infants during work hours. There is more information on www.dol.govt.nz

This is a great move. But thoughts come to mind are:
- so does this mean your baby will be at your work,
- you may need to work close to where your baby is being minded so that you can nip out to feed them
- you'd be under alot of pressure to feed them quickly and get back to work
- if you are not with your baby, then you'd be expressing. So I assume this new provision means that you can take breaks to express milk.

I used to work as a consultant in an office, mainly of men. I am just trying to imagine where I would feed my baby or express if I had still been working them. If I had baby with me (but realistically baby wouldnt have been with me in the office) then I could have breastfed him in the lunchroom. But I wouldnt have expressed in there. I guess I would have expressed milk in the loo. With a large open plan office I wouldnt have done it at my desk.

So the new provisions are great, but there are still practicality issues.

Thank goodness I am a WAHM now, so I can feed my baby while I work at home anyway :-)