Traveling home from Pittsburgh, after presenting at the 2019 Cheryl Squire Flint Annual Cultural Sensitivity Symposium, I’m struck by what amazing advocates here in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are doing to normalize breastfeeding, support women, and move institutions toward changes that improve equity and reduce barriers to breastfeeding. At the symposium today, I had the opportunity to hear about how researchers are moving forward understanding of risks of early weaning, clinicians are supporting women to breastfeed and to support other women in their breastfeeding journeys, and administrators at agencies are building the tools and sharing resources for implementing new programs.
I was so honored to have been in the company of leaders like Kimberly Seals Allers, Camie Jae Goldhammer, Dr. Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, Dr. Dara Mendez, and others presenting at the conference and am leaving inspired by the expertise and the energy of the advocates we have here in PA.
This is on the heels of four topical articles all published on April 30, including one in Nature covering some of my work on college and university campus lactation planning. The coverage of the work included some really important quotes about how important this work is. A companion article, also by Kendall Powell, described the crisis in academia about balancing work with family responsibilities and the need for better paid leave policies . On the same day, the Harvard Business Review published an article entitled, “How companies can support breastfeeding employees” by a group from the Center for Worklife Law. which did a detailed report on some egregious examples of discrimination in December. And Katherine Goldstein, of the podcast “The Double Shift” also published an article in Poynter about how women in media might navigate return to work as new moms and also how to advocate for each other.
This all gives me hope that recognition is growing that we must address the barriers to constructing work environments that allow women to flourish as mothers and professionals. The time is now. And the expertise to tackle the complex challenges of changing the infrastructure is out there and ready to contribute to the conversation.