Penn, CHOP Research: Even With Workplace Support, Breastfeeding Takes Commitment

Sometimes all it takes is a single interaction or a thoughtless comment from a coworker to make a new mother feel negatively about her experience with breastfeeding and pumping at work. That's true even in a place that attempts to build a positive culture around these aspects of motherhood, according to research from the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. 'Even if you put into place really excellent support and access to hospital pump rooms and have a strong policy, even with all that, some women can still find it challenging,' said Diane Spatz , a perinatal nursing and nutrition professor in Penn's School of Nursing and CHOP's lactation program director. 'It only takes one person to say, 'Why are you taking a pump break? - Spatz and Elizabeth Froh , clinical supervisor of CHOP's lactation team and Human Milk Management Center, paired up to look at what happens when women return to work from maternity leave and plan to continue breastfeeding. In 2014, the researchers published results of an initial quantitative study in the journal Breastfeeding Medicine . The second part of that effort, focused on qualitative findings, recently appeared in the Journal of Human Lactation . Such an emphasis was obvious to the researchers for several reasons.