Returning to work while breastfeeding

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer hit headlines back in February 2013, when she built a nursery within her office building, enabling her to bring her newborn son to work, following just two weeks of maternity leave. Mayer formerly worked for Google Inc. and took the job at rival search engine Yahoo! in her fifth month of pregnancy.

The controversy surrounding her very brief break from this new high-powered position stemmed not just from her surprising choice of maternity arrangements, but also from her ensuing request that all remote workers report back to the office.

Of course, we’re not all high-flying execs, nor are we likely to have the funds to install nurseries at our own expense, à la Ms Mayer. So how do most British mums manage to return to work yet still maintain breastfeeding their children successfully?

The answer lies in careful forward planning and expressing of breast milk in advance. With a little patience and a fair amount of practice, the nursing mother can express her milk by hand or by a specialised manual, electrical or battery operated pump. Breast milk can then be stored in sterilised plastic containers (such as feeding bottles) or in specialised breastfeeding Ziploc bags, and kept in the fridge for up to five days or frozen for up to six months.

It makes good sense to start expressing extra milk to build up an initial supply, perhaps the week before you’re due to return to work. An easy way to do this is to express milk from whichever breast you don’t use to feed your baby. If you have an electric pump, you may even be able to do both at the same time – we all know mums are the best multi-taskers! Your body will soon adjust to the increased demand naturally and your childcare provider will be able to use your ready-made feeds during the periods while you’re away from your baby.

Once you return to work, you’ll need to take your equipment with you and continue to express regularly (most likely at the same intervals as you would feed your child, so as to keep up the milk supply). If you are expressing at work, make sure to bring a sterilised bottle with you and a cool bag to store it in during the journey home.

A surprising number of British breastfeeding mothers are unaware that, providing they give their employer written notification that they are nursing, they are protected by the law while in the workplace. Health and Safety Executive (HSE) states that, ‘There are no legal restrictions on breastfeeding at work or any time limit for doing so.’ If this is likely to cause a problem, employers must:

• Change a woman’s work hours, or
• Offer alternative work at the same wage, or
• Suspend her on paid leave for the duration of her breastfeeding

Although it’s not a legal requirement, employers are also advised by the HSE to provide a private, healthy and safe environment (i.e. not the toilets!) in which to express and store milk. It is, however, enforced that employers should provide somewhere for breastfeeding mothers to rest and, if necessary, lie down. When considering your return to work, it is important to make sure there will be a comfortable chair to use in a private room, near a power socket (if your pump requires this), a sink and with access to a fridge where you can store your bottles.

Breastfeeding mothers are allowed breaks of approximately 20 minutes during which they can express milk in private. The number of breaks a woman can reasonably take depends on the age of her baby – the younger the child; the more frequent the feeds.

For more information on the equipment you need to express your breast milk and a guide to how long it can be safely stored at room temperature, refrigerated or frozen, please read our Expressing breast milk page .

For more information on the law and returning to work while breastfeeding, please visit: Health and Safety Executive website.