Postdoc Parenting Work-Life Balance

There's a koan in academia for when is the best time to have a kid:

No time is the right time, all times are equally good (bad?)

My husband is also a postdoc. We have a 9 month old. This is a glass half full kind of post, about how we've taken advantage of the flexible hours, the autonomy, and a few supportive policies to pursue parenting and work on our own(-ish) terms. 

The short of it is that at least one of us was home with our daughter full time until she turned 4 months old and at least one of us continues to be home with her four days a week. Here's how we do it:

Please do not disturb: Pumping in progress

This is the sign that adorns my office doorknob every day around noon and again at 3. And this is more or less what I look like as I pump -- yes, quite the fashion statement. Thankfully my officemate is comfortable with my pumping in our office. More importantly, however, is that I have the convenient option to use the new lactation room in my building.

Northwestern University's Tech Building is no exception. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) requires employers to allow time for pumping as well as a reasonable space (that's not a bathroom!) to pump. Specifically, the law requires that employers “provide a reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for one year after the child’s birth each time such employee has need to express milk.” Moreover, employers must “provide a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from co-workers and the public” for nursing employees.

Pumping at 23, The extended mission through the Milky Way

I couldn’t resist choosing the blog title “pumping at 23”. Since this is a blog about maintaining an astrophysics career and nursing a child, one might logically think it refers to a 23-year-old mother pumping milk. In my case, since it will be ten years next month since I defended my PhD thesis, I must admit the 23 refers to my daughter’s age in months. Since I work at NASA, I can’t help but refer to the pending 24 month transition as the extended mission; soon I will have met my personal goals for the prime mission!

A prospective postdoc stopped by on Friday to chat and the first half of the conversation ended up being about pumping milk when traveling. Here is an anonymous thank you for the inspiration for a pumping-and-astrophysics blog.
So, first let’s have a reminder. Breastmilk is wonderful for babies and toddlers, and the connection between the nursing mom and her child is also beneficial to employers. Breastfed babies have fewer ear infections and illnesses, and illness tends to be less severe. More difficult to quantify is the wonderful re-connection that a working astrophysicist feels with her child after a long day at work. I like to think of it as concentrated mothering. Now, not everyone wants to breastfeed, and sometimes it honestly doesn’t work out (but please see previous blogs, I have never said this was the easy path!). If a mother wants to continue to give her baby breast milk, it is a good idea to support that.

And then we come to the “dreaded pump.” Although I personally have had an overall positive pumping experience, many astrophysicist-mothers I have spoken with talk about the pumping in a rather negative way. Practically speaking, pumping serves two purposes: (1) maintaining your milk supply when you spend time away from the child and (2) preventing discomfort and more serious problems that may arise when failing to empty a full breast. If you aren’t going to be around the kid and you want your milk supply to be maintained, you have to pump. Travel is when this becomes essential. For a fun illustration of what this looks like in practice, here is a short list of some places/situations where I have pumped:
• the lactation room at NASA GSFC (shared hospital-grade pump, AWESOME)
• the restroom on an 11-hour international flight en route to an X-ray binaries/supermassive black hole conference (battery pack is the only option!)
• the restroom on a long-delayed Amtrak train back from Boston from the summer AAS meeting (ewww! Battery pack and wipes needed, bathroom was disgusting!)
• the office of the public policy fellow at the American Astronomical Society headquarters (electricity and access to a refrigerator, yes!)
• the Potbelly Sandwich shop near the White House Office of Management and Budget (electric plug and sink in the same room)
• my office (convenient but people still open the door)

At some point though, all mothers face a moment when it is time to stop pumping. Your child is old enough (and that is a decision for each mother to make based on her situation, although I will mention here that the World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding until two years of age, the American Pediatric Association recommends breastfeeding until at least a year of age). So for many people, somewhere around a year or later (for me it was about 16-17 months), the daily pumping routine will no longer seem necessary. At this point, I haven’t pumped since early January when I attended the AAS meeting in Austin. I will also say that, at 23 months, I am very grateful that I did all that pumping.

While at home, I nurse my daughter approximately 3 times every work day, once in the morning, once before bed, and once in the middle of the night. She now asks and politely says “all done”. And at 23 months, I will say that I treasure this wonderful connection with my daughter as much as ever. I just started a demanding new position at NASA and I frankly think that these cuddling/nursing sessions with my daughter are one part of what is helping me deal with all the pressures of motherhood and career right now.

I’m also glad to have made it through the peak of the snarky comments period. According to Baumgartner’s “Mothering Your Nursing Toddler” the peak period for rude comments (which prompted some of this blog) is from 12-24 months. The young woman who visited me certainly had some snarky comments to share.

So, this is just a reminder that those who pump milk and do astrophysics are not alone.

A metric for workplace environment culture: How long do mothers nurse?

If you think you have a positive culture at work for families, how would you measure it? One might be to determine how long, on average, the mothers of young children nurse their children. The workplace environment has a significant impact on the nursing relationship (availability of lactation rooms, flexibility in scheduling, maternity leave policies, etc).

There is a lot of literature showing that women tend to persist in nursing when they have peers who are doing the same. So, a lactation room, beyond just providing the legally required space for pumping milk, provides a networking location for your employees.

Approximately 17 months ago I began pumping milk at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in the lactation room there. At that time, my daughter was about two months old and there were several other women with older babies pumping milk. Over the last 19 months, women have had babies and joined the room. I see them logging in day after day. Now something interesting is happening. People are continuing to pump milk up to the year mark and beyond. This means women are not rotating out of the room as new ones come in. Within the next week, a second lactation room will be opened in our building to prepare for two more women to come off maternity leave.

We have three women pumping milk for children over a year old right now! Knowing how rare that is in the U.S. right now I would take it as a very positive indicator of the success of our lactation program and therefore of how good our workplace environment is for mothers of young children.

It is smart for institutions to be supportive in this way. Babies who receive breastmilk get sick less often and less severely and there is thus less absenteeism. Nursing is a source of comfort that provides a very fast means of emotional reconnection between mother and child at the end of a work day. Happier employees make happier bosses, right?

So, if you’re wondering how to make your workplace environment family-friendly, invest time, energy and resources into having a great lactation room, like my institution did.

A Trip Through the “Milky” Way: Adventures in Astrophysics and Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding and working can be done, and can be pursued for a year and beyond. Recently I’ve met three women who nursed to between 14 – 24 months while maintaining research astrophysics careers. Support is available, you just have to ask for it and you do have to plan a little bit. FYI, you can read up on the amazing health benefits to you and baby elsewhere (I recommend La Leche League). This is about astrophysics and breastfeeding, focusing on “travel” issues (including just being away from your normal routine).

For instance, in August when my daughter Anya was 5 months old (still completely sustained on breastmilk) I attended a NASA proposal review. I had to send an email to someone I did not know well, asking for a room in which to pump and for breaks during the review (I noted that I could only participate in the review if I got 20 minute breaks in the morning and afternoon). I also chatted with the panel chair before the review started. They really took care of me! Our panel room was partitioned and yours truly got the other side of the partitioned room as a pumping room. My panel chair (male, FYI) was willing to have the proposals on which I was conflicted be discussed slightly out-of-order so I was able to take my pumping breaks and not hold up deliberations. I did have to fess up to the whole committee about what I was doing (at first I tried not to, but one guy was kind of wondering why I kept disappearing through that wall partition). Luckily, I brought Medela “cleaning wipes” with me to the NASA review. The room was wonderfully convenient but there was no sink right there so I had to clean the parts of the pump using the wipes. I had a cooler pack for the milk (no refrigerator handy).

This year I am on research sabbatical with frequent trips to Northwestern in Chicago. I travel Southwest Airlines as they allow you to carry nearly-infinite "baby stuff" with you and I bring a nursing cover and breastpump with me. I managed to time the first visit to coincide with a personal trip so my parents were in Chicago and found a grad student through my personal network who was happy to watch my daughter for 2 days. I pump milk in the morning, leaving the “sitter” with milk, and then get together with Anya at lunchtime and mid-afternoon to nurse. Once again, I was pretty open about the whole thing, including asking colleagues for offices. I got multiple offers for locations to nurse within the department and enthusiastic help (doors opened, keys lent, etc.). Also, I started with a shorter trip involving no airplanes to State College, PA where I was able to establish an "away from home" pumping routine, that time with my mother-in-law with me. You may think it is crazy to travel with your mother-in-law, but you may find that a grandmother is perfect when you need to work, even if it isn't your mother. She focused on the kid so I could focus on work!

Next up, I’m taking my daughter, my husband and my breastpump on a trip to Greece (AGN/binaries conference) so I can keep the nursing going. So, I took baby steps (first a local NASA review, then a drive to State College, then a plane trip to Chicago, now we go international). The next new thing is that the pump operates on batteries (which I am testing today at home!) and I can bring little plastic bags into which to pump milk so I don’t need to pack a ton of collection bottles.

So far, so good but you have to plan and communicate, and as I hope is obvious, you have to really make breastfeeding a priority. But here I am at six months and Anya hasn’t been sick even once and is a very happy, healthy baby. I feel good too. So, it cost a little extra in terms of money for sitters, time arranging things, and time to pump, but it was really worth it.