Let’s imagine we live in a world where mothers and fathers share childcare equally. Still, we can’t share pregnancy, and we can’t share breastfeeding.
I have 2 kids, and I found they were both easier to take care of before they were born. For me, pregnancy was easier than what came after. That’s why I wanted to write this article about breastfeeding — not many people understand what moms have to juggle in order to feed baby and work.
I started work at Robin AI when I was 34 weeks pregnant with my second. I was the seventh person at the company, and the first woman.
I chose a short maternity leave. I brought my daughter into the office when she was 8 days old, and was back working full-time by 4 weeks. This was my decision. I didn’t want our product to be built without me. I was (still am) the only clinical person at a company building a product for doctors. I also didn’t want to delay learning how to do my job as a product manager, having switched careers from medicine to technology.
So, that was hard.
What’s so hard about coming back to work when you have a tiny human at home? Honestly, what’s not hard. Among the many challenges, if you’re breastfeeding, you can’t really outsource nighttime feedings to dad. Even when you’re not with baby, feeding consumes a big part of a nursing mother’s mindshare, because you have to keep milk flowing and bring it home to baby.
If you haven’t done it yourself, you probably don’t know what a breastfeeding mom thinks about. It’s worth learning what moms need, so if you work with a mom, you can help make her life easier. Here’s what we coordinate on a daily basis:
Private space to pump. This part isn’t too hard as long as I’m in the office. When I accepted my role at Robin AI, one of the first things I asked for was a lactation room — a fairly significant ask in a small office with limited private space. The company of course accommodated. The space doubles as a conference room, so it’s up to me to speak up when I need it. Suboptimal, but better than a bathroom stall.
Transporting pump and milk. I bring my hospital-grade breast pump back and forth to work most days. I carry it in a special bag, which other mothers spot in a second, like a secret handshake for moms with babies.
Equipment maintenance. I have to charge the pump’s batteries, and make sure the puzzle pieces that make up the pumping apparatus are properly cleaned. Finding a lactation room with a sink is always a huge win (ours does not have one). If one of the puzzle pieces goes missing, or if I forget to restock milk storage bags, I have a problem. As you might imagine, this makes travel especially stressful.
Refrigeration. I bring an ice pack to work every day for transporting milk home. If I leave the office for a meeting, I usually bring the pump and a mini cooler with ice. At the office, I claim a drawer in a shared fridge for storing milk bags. Please respect the space I use for milk! I don’t like finding it crammed with diet soda or your lunch.
Finding time to pump. It’s tough to carve out 20 minutes every 3 hours to lock myself in a private room. I sometimes pump while driving to save time. If meetings go long, I’m looking at the clock. It’s awkward and inconvenient to excuse myself from meetings in order to pump. Sure, I’m often on email, Slack, and even the odd phone call while pumping, but definitely not presentable for face-to-face discussions.
Finding time to pump was a different kind of challenge before I joined Robin AI, when I was doing surgery fulltime. I had my first baby as a surgical chief resident. My son was 6 weeks old when I went back to work at the hospital. During long operations, lasting 6 or 8 hours at times, I would excuse myself from the OR to go pump. Luckily, I had been at Stanford 6 years already, and my colleagues knew me well and were understanding. When I moved to a new institution for surgical fellowship, I stopped nursing my son. He was 6 months old already, and I did not think the demands of that job could accommodate pumping.
Every time I’ve asked for accommodation, my colleagues in both surgery and the start-up have been understanding. Still, I don’t enjoy asking for special treatment.
Travel. It sucks. Travel with a baby can be tough, but travel without the baby presents special challenges for a breastfeeding mom. You have to bring ice. Find a place to pump in the airport. Tolerate a long plane flight without pumping, which gets uncomfortable, or find a way to pump in the cramped airplane restroom (yucky). Locate refrigeration in an unfamiliar place, often a client site — do they think it’s weird when you ask to grab space in the communal fridge? Finally, you have to get the milk back home — either by shipping it, as some of my friends have done, or by clearing TSA in the airport.
Carrying liquid through airport security. The TSA breastmilk search is my least favorite part of traveling. You’re carrying liquid… could it be a bomb?!? Uh, this is not a bomb, it’s what babies eat. The agent is not sure of the proper procedure. They want to open the storage bags. Their scanners don’t work right. Most often, it ends with a full-body pat-down. Although I’ve had a few wonderfully sympathetic women agents, I’ve also felt humiliated to the brink of tears.
To sum all this up: Pumping at work is time-consuming. It’s a hassle. It can feel isolating. The challenges are magnified at a startup. As the first woman and first mom, I had to ask for what I needed. Our small physical space meant accommodations were a bit bare-bones. Lack of redundancy in our team meant I came back early from maternity leave, and had more travel than I wanted.
At the same time, for my babies and for my career, I’m glad I made it happen.
My goal was to breastfeed for 6 months. I did it! I stopped breastfeeding my 8-month-old this past week. I’m both sad and relieved.
I’m sad because the tiny, smiley, heart-melting little girl who started out as an extension of my own body is now no longer a part of me. She is herself, and one more bond between us is gone.
I’m relieved because my body is my own again. No more pumping at work, or in the car, or in the airport. No more ducking out of meetings. No more humiliating TSA searches. I can start riding my bike to work, because I don’t have to carry the breast pump bag. I can stay out for happy hour and not think about getting home to feed the baby.
It’s hard to breastfeed and work at a startup. But at the same time, in a startup, everyone is there to do something hard: build a product that will change the world.
So moms, please step up to the challenge. We need your perspective, maturity, drive, and skill. We need your talent. We need you to do great work, and we know your babies need you too. We support you.
