Saturday, July 09, 2005

Addressing Moms' Needs at Work

Chicago lawyer Beth Stroup resumed her full-time job after a three-month maternity leave in 2003, following the birth of her son Jake. For the next 10 months, her workday included one to three 15-minute breaks to pump breast milk into a bottle. "It was a short time frame, but the health benefits he'll receive will last a lifetime," she said.

Stroup is among a growing number of women who continue to breast-feed their babies after returning to work. According to the most recent Ross Mothers Survey, conducted annually by the Ross Products Division of Ohio-based Abbott Laboratories, 29.5 percent of employed women breast-fed their babies at 6 months of age in the United States in 2003, compared with 15.4 percent in 1993. For many of those women, like Stroup, pumping milk at work was necessary to keep up their milk supply so they could continue breast-feeding.



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