Breast milk no longer considered a potential terrorism tool

Well, here's a spot of bright news - the TSA no longer considers breastmilk a threat. After countless mothers were forced to throw away their breastmilk, or in some cases to taste it for screeners to "prove" it posed no security threat, the TSA has finally changed its ridiculous policy.

Mama-rama: Breast-feeding is not offensive (The Hub)

Maybe you've heard about the woman who was kicked off a Delta Airlines flight for nursing her daughter a couple of weeks ago. According to 27-year-old Emily Gillette of Santa Fe, N.M., she was in a window seat in the second-to-last row with her husband between her and the aisle, and no part of her breast was showing. Unfortunately for Emily, a flight attendant took offense and asked her to cover up with a blanket. When Emily declined, she and her husband and daughter were asked to get off the plane.

Now, I'm sure I don't have to tell you -- again -- how I feel about people who are offended by public breast-feeding. Basically, it begins with "too" and ends with "bad," with a "damn" in the middle there. The idea that feeding a child could be considered obscene or indiscreet, while every day thousands of men get away with plumber's crack scot-free, is enough to raise my blood pressure to dangerous heights.



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Lampert Smith: UW rethinks its stadium lactation (Wisconsin State Journal)

I'm pleased to announce a breakthrough in the "breast wars" at Camp Randall Stadium.

There will be no need to strap a nursing bra on the statue of Barry Alvarez, paint nipples on the white footballs on that ugly sculpture outside the stadium, or stage a "nurse-in" at the Capital One Bowl. (Although it was fun hearing all of your ideas, really!)

The folks in the UW Athletic Department have heard the complaints loud and clear about the nursing mom who was turned away from the first-aid station where she had hoped to use her breast pump. They have apologized profusely for not doing a better job helping her find one of Camp Randall's seven new family restrooms. (The upper deck, where that mom has been a season- ticket holder for many years, doesn't have one.)

And they want to make it very, very clear that they didn't kick her out of the stadium for breast-feeding.



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Decriminalizing breast feeding (Baltimore Sun)

If there is one area of human behavior into which legislatures should not have to intrude, it would surely be breast feeding.

Nature's brilliant plan for nourishing infants that also helps support tiny immune systems is regarded by medical experts as superior to any substitute method and thus widely encouraged.

Yet more than 40 states, including Maryland, have enacted statutes to affirmatively assert a mother's right to nurse her child in public or at least to exempt her from criminal prosecution under indecency laws. A more sweeping proposal is also pending at the federal level.

Is this necessary? It shouldn't be. But the genesis of such laws was made clear enough recently when a nursing mother was put off a Delta Air Lines flight in Vermont because she refused to put a blanket over her child's head.



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Path smoother for breast-feeding moms (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Julie Maness, who twice returned to work while she was breast-feeding, has seen both the good and the bad when it comes to pumping breast milk on the job. The 38-year-old mother of two from Cahokia remembers pumping in a restroom stall following the birth of her older daughter, Molly, now 11.

"It was basically a carpeted warehouse," Maness says. "The bathroom was the best I could do there, so I would take my equipment into a stall and try to pump there and try not to touch anything."

In spite of those conditions, Maness pumped and nursed until Molly was more than 10 months old.

Circumstances were much better after the birth of Cordelia, now 5. Maness had taken a job at Fleishman-Hillard, where she still works as coordinator of accounts receivable. There was no lactation room or official policy for nursing moms, but her supervisors and employer were very supportive, even before her maternity leave.

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Lampert Smith: UW boobs when it comes to breasts (Wisconsin State Journal)

You couldn't invent better Badger credentials than Amy Lee Olson's.

She's had season football tickets since 1988, the dark years of the Don Morton regime, and she worked 14 years at University Ridge Golf Course.

She's a former Badger wrestling cheerleader.

Her husband, Todd, was Bucky Badger from 1989 to 1993. They got engaged at the 1994 Rose Bowl.

Their youngest child, born in August, is named Madison.

Sadly, that littlest Badger is the cause of their beef with UW-Madison - and the reason Todd Olson went to Saturday's UW-Buffalo game with their older child, Cooper, leaving Amy and the baby at home in Maple Grove, Minn.



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Many St. Louis Companies Accommodate Nursing Mothers (KSDK.com)

Many large St. Louis companies have lunch rooms for their employees. Some even have workout rooms or fitness centers.

But how do local businesses rate when it comes to accommodating the needs of working women who breastfeed?

Here's a look at how some of St. Louis' largest companies accommodate working mothers who nurse.


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Breast-feeding options often determined by employer (The Enquirer)

TULSA, Okla. - Darby Barnett said she quit her job several weeks ago because her boss made it nearly impossible for her to breast-feed her infant daughter.

It was a tough decision to make. Barnett is raising 6-month-old Delainey on her own. But finances became less important when the 24-year-old didn't have enough breast milk for her daughter as a result of being unable to pump at work.

She said her boss wouldn't give her additional breaks.


"I didn't want to have conflict and lose my job, so I wouldn't say anything, and Delainey suffered," she said.



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Baby-friendly workplaces (The Kansas City Star)

Flexible scheduling, special changing and quiet rooms all are part of the benefits.

Going back to work after having a baby can be difficult, but workplace programs and options such as lactation rooms and flexible schedules can help ease the transition.

The Kansas City-based National Association of Insurance Commissioners goes even further. An Infants in the Workplace program allows parents to take their babies to work until the baby is six months old.

“It allows the new parent — we have both mothers and fathers — an opportunity to bond with the new baby and spend time with them, while at the same time they are being productive for us,” said Catherine Weatherford, chief executive officer of the association.

In many cases, the parents come back to work sooner than expected because of the opportunity to bring the baby with them, she said.



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Breast-feeding and the workplace (The Oregonian)

Oregon moms say time and space is often lacking despite recognition of the benefits to their babies

For two years, federal health officials have tried to cajole more moms to breast-feed their infants, launching a nationwide ad campaign that likened the risks of formula feeding, in one TV spot, to riding a mechanical bull while pregnant.

But the campaign has done little to help moms overcome one of the biggest barriers to breast-feeding -- the workplace.

Federal and state lawmakers have declined in recent years to force companies to guarantee female employees a time and place to nurse or express milk at work, with business lobbyists successfully arguing that a one-size-fits-all approach isn't effective in the workplace.



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Breast-feeding: Getting employers to latch on (Oregon Live)

Perhaps you read The Sunday Oregonian's Business Section package about breast-feeding accommodations in the workplace. Two Oregon moms, Rosetta Thuresson and Cathy Kemmerer, shared how they tried to balance breast-feeding and work. Rosetta was unsuccessful and actually quit her job to start her own home-based business. Cathy still works and pumps breastmilk, but she'd never say it's easy.

When I interviewed them, I was struck by how articulately they recounted their struggles and successes. Both kindly agreed to let me post edited versions of our interviews so you could read about their experiences in their own words. Just click on the attachment below.



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Nursing My Daughter, and Some Grievances (New York Times)

...I took off my shoes, put my bags into the bin, and dumped the ice that was keeping my newly pumped milk cool. Then the security agent said that I couldn’t take any milk onto the plane unless I had a baby with me. I told him that I wouldn’t have milk in a bag if I had my baby with me.

We started arguing. I feared I was going to miss my flight. I knew it was fruitless to try to explain how much this milk meant to me, that it was, at this point, my only primal connection to my baby back home. It was mother’s milk — was I really going to have to throw it in the trash? Yes. I tossed it into the gray can.

Sadness shot through me, then anger. “How many women have you made throw away breast milk today?”

“Six,” he said....


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Mom saves breast milk as she goes off to war

A story you won’t hear on the front lines of Operating Iraqi Freedom. An Oklahoma mom has 10 gallons of breast milk frozen for her baby boy. Every mom, who is called to serve our country, spends hours preparing to leave her children. Here is the story of one mom that will leave her son with the most precious gift she has to give.

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