Breastfeeding Mom Denied!
Posted September 1st, 2007 by AnitaDoctors agree that breastmilk is best for infants, but their own licensing board isn’t following doctor’s orders. Sophie Currier recently learned that when it comes to supporting breastfeeding, many of our leaders–whether they are in the medical establishment (as in Sophie’s case), business sector, or elsewhere–still don’t “walk the talk.” You see, Sophie was denied breast pumping breaks during her nine hour medical licensing exam. She’s not alone. Even in this day and age when the medical evidence is clear that breastfeeding is best for infants, women are regularly denied the time and location to pump.
SUPPORT THE BREASTFEEDING PROMOTION ACT! Sign the Statement of Support for breastfeeding moms everywhere now: “Healthcare professionals inform us that breastfeeding is the best possible way to ensure that babies thrive. In turn, we must ensure that breastfeeding mothers are able to breastfeed, and given the time and environment to pump at work or during other professional obligations.” Congress and the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) need to hear that breastfeeding must be supported for all moms, and that we support the Breastfeeding Promotion Act which is currently before Congress.
*To sign the Statement of Support for breastfeeding moms, just go to: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/momsrising/signUp.jsp?key=2614
*Please forward this email to friends!
After you sign the Statement of Support, please forward this email to friends and family so they can sign on as well! Your voice can make a difference: When a subsidiary of Delta Airlines kicked a woman off an airplane for breastfeeding, we sent them a petition with more than 20,000 MomsRising signatures, and shortly afterwards the airline apologized and instituted a new training program for their employees.
STAND WITH SOPHIE, JANEE, AND MOTHERS ACROSS THE NATION! Women like Janee McConnell could also use the Breastfeeding Promotion Act. Janee worked in a grocery store that had a health consciousness she admired. She was such a committed employee that she rose to a management job quickly and was called a “rock star” by the other employees. After her third child was born, she tried to pump at work but there was no private place to go other than a dirty, windowless electrical room. When her milk supply dropped she spoke up but store management was unsympathetic. She resigned from her management position and eventually from the store all together.
Frankly, we all lose when we don’t support mothers– businesses lose excellent employees, infants lose important nutrients, and women lose needed jobs. No mom should have to choose between keeping her job and feeding her baby and protecting her own health.
SHARE YOUR STORY: Many of us mothers know personally what it’s like to juggle breastfeeding babies and work. Some of us have also experienced the pain of engorgement and the risk of mastitis when feeding or pumping doesn’t occur every few hours. Stories like this are common. You may even have experienced something similar yourself. *Share your story on our blog at: http://www.momsrising.org/node/573
All too often women aren’t able to breastfeed their babies even though the American Academy of Pediatrics tells us it’s one of the most important things we can do for a child’s health. Let’s send a strong message together that it’s time to “walk the talk” for healthy infants and mothers.
*Don’t forget to sign the Statement of Support to tell the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) and Congress that we want breastfeeding to be supported for all moms–and to forward this email to friends so they can sign on too. Just click here to sign on now: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/momsrising/signUp.jsp?key=2614
Best — Anita, Nanette, Kristin, Mary, Joan, Ashley, Katie, and Donna
P.S. THE LOWDOWN ON THE BREASTFEEDING PROMOTION ACT: Representative Carolyn Maloney’s Breastfeeding Promotion Act would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to protect breastfeeding by new mothers by providing tax credits to employers who provide a place to breastfeed and/or provide breast pumps. This makes it a lot easier for women who want to give their babies breastmilk and keep their jobs. As you may know, 82% of American women become mothers by the time they are forty-four years old, so this issue is critically important to a large portion of our nation. To read the bill, go to: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.2236:
SOURCES:
1. Boston Globe article on Sophie Currier: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/06/23/board_wont_relent_for_breast_feeding_mother/
2. Data about breastfeeding: http://www.aap.org/publiced/BR_BFBenefits.htm See also http://www.aap.org/breastfeeding/
-Your donations make the work of MomsRising possible. To donate today on our new, secure website go to: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/momsrising/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2156
27 Comments
Better quicker than never.
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February 11, 2009 at 2:32 am by AnonymousThis exam is incredibly important because the integrity of the exam has been meticulously maintained. Allowing some students to have a time advantage, no matter the reason, destroys the integrity of this exam; this one exam which helps ensure the quality of a future practicing physicians medical education, and the quality of an individual students knowledge (buy thesis) they gained from that medical education. I don’t mean to offend, though people will be offended, but, what this young lady is doing is saying, ANYBODY who a good enough reason, should get extra time to take this exam. I could theoretically say I need extra time on the exam to masturbate, because if I don’t, I will get “blue balls”.
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September 20, 2007 at 2:16 pm by AnonymousMOMSRISING!
Support working mothers who are RESPONSIBLE!!! Sophie Currier is not being responsible – she is making all of the responsible working mothers out there look ridiculous, whiny and incapable of passing examinations. Stop this silliness. Her issue is not one of breastfeeding. It is one of entitlement and being spoiled. She is accustomed to it and now she feels entitled to more. She isn’t. This is not about reasonable accomodations for working mothers who are breastfeeding. It’s about gaming a system that is trying to be fair to everyone. She’s angry because she failed the test once. She should be studying instead of suing. You can’t sue your way past this test, Dr. Currier!
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September 11, 2007 at 3:54 pm by AnonymousThe accommodation she was granted is extra time to take the test, spreading it out over more time so that she has MORE THAN 9 hours to finish it (this is the same accommodation I had for taking my GRE back in 1999, well before motherhood for me, because of joint issues that prevent me being able to sit in one position without extreme pain for more than an hour at best). She hasn’t been granted extra breaks FROM the test, which would be required for pumping. Quite likely she’s being allowed double time (I was), meaning that for her ADHD she can take up to 18 hours to take the test instead of 9, hence 2 days instead of one. According to the news sources, she’s given a GRAND TOTAL of 45 MINUTES of break for the ENTIRE test, not 45 minute breaks from the test every X number of hours, which is about what’s required to pump and feed yourself when you’re exclusively breastfeeding if you’re not a very efficient pumper. Pumping is time consuming – it requires setting up the pump, calming down enough to let down, the actual act of pumping (which can take more than 20min to empty the breast(s) for some women), clean the pump parts so they don’t have drying milk sitting on them, store the pumped milk, get yourself back together and fed and back to your seat to resume test. She’s most certainly NOT just being a “whiny, entitled person” – she’s being a medical professional who realizes the importance of feeding her baby her milk and is asking for a very reasonable accommodation – the time to pump that milk to sustain her supply and prevent problems that could be detrimental to both her health and that of her young child.
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September 12, 2007 at 9:27 am by AnonymousThe statement “Sophie was denied breast pumping breaks during her nine hour medical licensing exam.” is not true.
According to the story in USAToday 9/12/07 she was allowed to split the 9 hour exam into days. So she was looking at 4.5 hours with a 22 minute break during each day.
Now if she feeds baby before the exam, during the break, and then after, on both days, this lady should have no problem feeding her baby.
Here is a link to the USAToday story, along with a second story about Ms.Currier regarding her issues with ADHD and the extremes measures MIT took to accomodate her.
It’s a bit of an eye-opener.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-12-breast-feeding-lawsuit_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2006/06/26/hyperactive_adults_need_help_too/?page=3
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September 21, 2007 at 4:26 am by AnonymousIt certainly seems like Ms. Currier is being overaccomodated and I really dislike that she felt so entitled to more accomodations that she needed to sue. However, I see a certain sense of entitlement in mothers anyway. It is manifested in the way they drive (too fast – alot of minivans have tailgated me and I’m not a slow driver), they are agressive pushing a stroller (bumping into a person’s heels or rolling over their toes or running into you), pushing strollers four across a two-way bike/run path on a blind curve – thus putting their kids and others in terrible danger AND then throwing a fit about it. Obviously, this type of aggressiveness does not encompass all mothers of course. Maybe it’s just the mothers instinct to get everything they can for their child before everyone else. It certainly comes across that way – it’s their world and everyone else just lives in it.
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