Guidelines on How to be Exempted from Setting Up Lactation Stations

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has issued guidelines on how companies can escape be exempted from setting up workplace lactation stations.   You can read Department Order 143-15, series of 2015 HERE.  You can also read the Guidelines below.   Thanks to Claire Mogol for tagging me.

What if your company/employer does not want to follow RA10028?

My employer does not want to provide lactation periods/lactation stations.  What is our recourse as breastfeeding and working mothers?

I have several posts on the rights of breastfeeding mothers who work, how to ask for a lactation policy, what an ideal lactation room looks like, etc. etc.  To read my various posts about breastfeeding, rights and work, click HERE.

My office is currently working on getting the Mother-Baby Friendly Certification - more on that in a separate post.  I'm lucky to have a supportive employer who supported our efforts resulting in the establishment of a lactation policy and lactation room.

STEP UP for Breastfeeding

Did you know that the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 10028 or the Expanded Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009 has been signed last 22 August 2011?  You can download a copy here.  The IRR was published on 28 August 2011 and will be effective on 12 September 2011.  This means that establishments are now required to have lactation stations and workplaces must set up their lactation programs!

After the successful launch of the Breastfeeding Welcome Here Program, UNICEF, WHO, DOLE, DOH and ILO has another exciting project in the works! Remember my series of posts on setting up a workplace lactation program? Well, the consortium has made things even more easier with their S.T.E.P. Up for Breastfeeding Program!

Signed IRR for RA10028 - a setback!

One year after Republic Act No. 10028 or the Expanded Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009 was signed in to law, the Implementing Rules and Regulations have been signed! But there was a major change made in the signed IRR. During the Breastfeeding TSEK launch, advocates from various groups talked about writing a letter to speed up the issuance of the IRR. Then we received information that the IRR was to be signed shortly, pending a single change to be made. Early this week, I received a copy of the IRR with advocates highlighting the major changes - which was deemed as a setback to the cause.

Break Time for Nursing Mothers

If you've been reading this blog since last year, you would know that along with several officemates, we were able to establish 2 lactation rooms at my office and that we are currently working on a policy. To document our efforts, I wrote a multi-part post starting with this. Yesterday, I received an email from Nanay Ines about a news report on the US federal law - "Break Time for Nursing Mothers", which was signed last 23 March 2010. This law "requires companies with at least 50 employees to provide reasonable time and a private space - not a bathroom - to pump milk until the baby is a year old." Interestingly, although the law is almost 1 year old, the US Labor Department has yet to draft guidelines and is still seeking comments from the public until today, 22 February 2011.

Ideal Workplace Lactation Room

My office already has 2 lactation rooms. Although they are not our ideal rooms, we're happy that management took time and resources to outfit our office with 2 rooms. We are working towards the

establishment of a third room in another building. Sometime in June, a reader, Bing emailed me and shared that her office will be moving to a new location with a lactation room and she was being given to opportunity to "outfit" the room on behalf of nursing moms! Lucky her!

In one of my email groups, the moms came up with a wish list of items they want in their lactation rooms. I chose my own wish list and split it into needs and wants

Breastfeeding Stations at Aegis People Support

Last Tuesday afternoon (June 29), I braved the wet rainy afternoon and heavy traffic to attend the launch of Cafe Au Lait at Aegis People Support. What is Cafe Au Lait? It is a "porta-let" (I know sounds gross!) type of booth which has all the trappings of a nursing station! A table, chair, electric outlet, some reading materials (even a mirror!) and more importantly - privacy for moms!!! It is a small booth but all the essentials are present. There is even a small refrigerator beside the breastfeeding station. Also, I love that management has made it really accessible for moms by providing not 1, not 2 but NINE breastfeeding stations for the employees! This means that there is at least 1 station per floor.
The breastfeeding station is located on the call center floor so if you have a noisy pump (like I do!), the call center agents near the station would definitely hear the buzzing sound.
I attended the launch upon the invitation of Janice Villanueva of Mommy Mundo. Janice helped her friend who spearheaded the Cafe Au Lait project in her company, Aegis People Support to make it a more mom-friendly work environment. Like Janice, I also believe that it is important to make companies aware about the benefits of making their work environments more mom-friendly, and how this contributes to their business' productivity in the long run.

In my own workplace, I was lucky to have a very supportive management who set-up 1 lactation room, with plans to set-up another one in a separate building.
I was quite late during the launch (it took me 1.5 hours from Manila to Makati that afternoon!) and missed several parts of the program such as talks on parenting and nursing; a welcome address by Senator Pia Cayetano - author of the expanded breastfeeding law; and raffle prizes and give-aways. I did check out the mother-baby bazaar co-presented by Mommy Mundo entitled “Mompreneur Market Comes to Aegis PeopleSupport”. And I was introduced to Marixel Laxa-Pangilinan, who was very pretty and gracious in person! Thanks to Candy Cu-Yaw for the introduction.
I only stayed for a short while but was glad to have attended the event. The lactation room set-up was an eye-opener and something which companies (especially those who claim that they don't have extra rooms) should consider when setting up their own programs/rooms.
Thanks to Janice Villanueva for the invitation and congratulations to Aegis People Support! This program is defintely one that should be emulated by Philippine companies.

Breastfeeding stations and clinics

In 2006, SM set-up its first breastfeeding center in SM Megamall. SM currently has 24 breastfeeding stations in its various malls nationwide.  In fact, in March 2010, SM even won an Anvil Award of Merit for its Breastfeeding Program. Among the 24 stations, I've had the opportunity of using only the one in SM Mall of Asia.  It used to be located inside the main mall, near the ATMs.  I've used it several times and I really wasn't too happy.  Sure there was a private room, but it wasn't too clean.  Some moms reported that there were cockroaches and creepy crawlies there, although I've never seen any when I was using the room.  The room is quite small and once, I had to share it with another nursing mom, her yaya and her mom.  I was there with Naima and Naima's yaya and it was a tight fit for all of us.  Previously, the glass door was covered with blinds.  But some of the blinds got ripped off so management decided to use gauzy curtains instead - which to my opinion was a big mistake because I could see people lining in front of the ATM trying hard not to look inside the breastfeeding station.  If I can see them, I'm sure they can see me.  

Recently, a new wing in the Entertainment Mall opened - with shops focused on kids and families.  During a visit, I saw a "breastfeeding station and mall clinic" sign.  I was pleased that there was going to be a 2nd station.  But, it turned out, they were closing down the old clinic.  Now, with 390,193 m² of retail space, Mall of Asia is not exactly small.  I'm happy that they have 1 breastfeeding station but was actually hoping that they would maintain 2 - one for each wing.  Plus - what I didn't like about this breastfeeding station is that it is located inside the mall clinic!  Sure there was a nurse on duty all the time and the breastfeeding room was enclosed with walls and a real door.  But before you get to the breastfeeding room, you'd have to pass through the clinic examination area.  Seriously, would you want to bring your baby to an area where there is a possibility for him/her to be in close contact with sick people?!

To give them credit, the room was better furnished than the old breastfeeding station.  There were 2 sofas and some plastic chairs.  Plus there was a clean sink, with thermos.  What I didn't like was that when not in use, the breastfeeding room was being used as a stockroom.  You can see from the photo that wheelchairs, extra toilet papers and boxes are being stored there. 

Also, the new breastfeeding was cleaner.  I told the nurse on duty about my observations and she admitted that the breastfeeding room now was better maintained than the old breastfeeding station because there were doctors and nurses constantly in the room - thus, maintenance cleaned it more often.  

The nurse also mentioned that they had brought up with SM Management  the issue of having a breastfeeding room inside the clinic.  SM Management was non-committal on whether they would be transferring the breastfeeding room to a separate location.  But from the looks of the breastfeeding room and the set-up in other SM malls, I would think that SM Management is planning to combine breastfeeding rooms with their mall clinics permanently.  I hope SM Management will realize the importance of why breastfeeding rooms and clinics should be in separate rooms.  The SM's breastfeeding program is laudable but there just has to be some tweaks to make their rooms responsive to the nursing mom's needs.

Breastfeeding Rooms in the US

Hot on the heels of our own Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009 is the US' health care bill recently signed into law by President Barrack Obama which includes provisions on providing non-toilet rooms for pumping moms.

According to CNN, in page 1239 of the health care bill that President Obama recently signed into law, employers are required to provide "a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from co-workers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk." [The local counterpart would be lactation stations mandated by Republic Act No. 10028, which are "private, clean, sanitary, and well-ventilated rooms or areas in the workplace or public places where nursing mothers can wash up, breastfeed or express their milk comfortably and store this afterward" and shall not be located in a toilet.] Noticeable is the fact that the authors of the law have realized how unsanitary it is to express milk in the toilet, yet so many working moms end up doing so because of the lack of available facilities.

However, depiste the grant of the breastfeeding station, the rights given to nursing moms by the law is still limited. Among the limitations enumerated in this New York Times blog are exemptions for companies with less than 50 employees [if company can show undue hardship], no guaranteed pay for time spent expressing milk and no requirement for access to a place where expressed milk can be stored. Also, there is an upper limit that the reasonable break time is only for employees nursing her child for 1 year after birth. I think the upper limit is based on the American Academy of Pediatricians' recommendation to breastfeed babies up to 1 year. But some moms, like me, continue to do so even after their babies turn one. In my case, I continued to express milk for Naima at work until she turned 2 years old. So does this mean that women who continue to breastfeed their babies beyond 1 year are no longer given reasonable break time to express milk for their toddlers?

I'm glad to note that our own law defines a nursing employee as "any female worker, regardless of employment status, who is breastfeeding her infant and/or young child (who is defined to be a child up to 36 months old). Also, the exemption for employees do not specify any number of female employees. Rather it is whether the establishment of the lactation stations "is not feasible or necessary due to the peculiar circumstances of the workplace or public place taking into consideration, among others, number of women employees, physical size of the establishment, and the average number of women who visit." I'm not sure if this is a better provision as it would depend on how the implementing rules and regulations will be construed.

In any case, having the requirement of breastfeeding stations clearly written in law is a major step. Hopefully, a detailed lactation program will be set-up in my workplace by the time I have my second baby.

WABA Certificate

Sharing the certificate that we received from WABA in recognition of our participation in World Breastfeeding Week through our breastfeeding awareness festival.

So what has happened since then? Well, management has instructed the Space Allocation Committee to look for another lactation room in second building. Procurement for a refrigerator with a lock has started and I was able to email a comparison chart of what should be inside a lactation room to our space allocation committee to help them in identifying a proper room and making purchase requisitions for items to be procured for the rooms.

C and I really need to start working on the Lactation Policy. However, things have really been crazy and with the holidays coming I think we will have to postpone the implementation of the policy for next year.

Setting up a Lactation Program At Work, Preparing for the Festival

August is a very hectic month and I'm in the midst of preparing for my office's breastfeeding awareness festival, a family vacation in Singapore and a talk on breastfeeding and working I will be giving in my hometown at the end of the month. Our breastfeeding awareness festival has finally been given the "official" stamp of approval by my institution's management! We started the preparations while we were securing management approval.

Setting Up a Lactation Program at Work, Creating a Buzz

The Survey

After the successful presentation at the employees' association meeting, C and I started work on the proposal by preparing a survey for female employees. The purpose of the survey is to obtain data on how many female employees are currently breastfeeding or have previously breastfed (successfully or not). We also wanted to obtain information to determine the necessity of a lactation room and essential components thereof. Thanks to Google Docs, creating the survey form and compiling/tabulating the collected information was easy.

Setting Up a Lactation Program at Work, Employees' Association Meeting

Today, C and I had a presentation before our employees' association to request for support for our lactation program proposal. C was supposed to present during the last council meeting (in May). However, she had another seminar to attend to abroad. In the May meeting, a proposal for a breastfeeding station was brought up. However, there were no concrete plans made. Instead, it was proposed that the nursing moms be directed to the employees' association room to express their milk.

Setting Up a Lactation Program at Work, Part I

I met with C, a media officer, at our GFI. Because of the efforts of F, she also attempted to write and promote the establishment of lactation rooms. She went one step further and prepared a powerpoint presentation. It was impressive. She was able to compile comprehensive employee data and relevant Philippine information on breastfeeding.
On my end, utilizing my skills as a researcher, I came upon this site, aptly titled "Breastfeeding Pinay," which had information on developing lactation support programs and establishing lactation rooms in the Philippine setting.

Setting up a Lactation Program at Work, The Beginnings

When Naima was almost 7 months old, I got a phone call from my former boss who told me that her dad needed a lawyer in his staff. Since the workplace was near my home, she thought of me and asked me if I was already working. At this time, I was wrapping up a research work I was doing for a counsel of a multilateral development finance institution and was going to start looking for a full-time job -- perfect timing!
During the interview, I informed the boss-to-be that I was still nursing Naima and would be pumping at work so I would be looking for a private room or be going out on pumping breaks. He pointed me to his conference room, which was separated from his main office by a full sliding door and asked if that was good. It was perfect! I could close the sliding door during the pumping times. Our office was self-contained and had our own refrigerator -- so I had no worries about how to store my milk.