Today, Explained - My lovely lady pumps

Episode Date: April 16, 2019

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Everyone wants more money, and everyone wants to make a difference. With Aspiration, a financial partner that puts you, your conscience, and the planet first, anything is possible. Enjoy a 2% annual percentage yield, zero ATM fees, and the option to choose your own monthly fee, even if it's zero bucks. Plus, rest easy knowing your deposits won't fund oil pipelines or drilling that harms our planet. Download the Aspiration app to open an account today. Save money, save the world. I'm Sarah Cliff filling in for Sean Ramos-Vurham, and I want to introduce you to a friend of mine. I had a baby 10 months ago, and that means I have spent a lot of time with this machine, a breast pump. And I am not the only one. As of 2016, according to the CDC,

a little more than 80 percent of mothers start breastfeeding at birth, and around half of babies are still breastfeeding when they're six months old. Vox reporter Anna North is a new mom, too. We are both part of that 80%. We both had a lot of really good reasons to breastfeed. The milk was good for our kids, and it is free, unlike formula. And besides, the experience of snuggling a baby while you nurse is just unbeatable. Except both Anna and I had to go back to work. And that meant every few hours we would stop whatever we were doing

and pump so our babies would have a steady supply of breast milk. I can tell you that hooking yourself up to a breast pump is a lot less pleasant than snuggling a nursing baby. Still, Anna and I were lucky. We had three months of paid leave, and in the United States, that is not guaranteed. But some big-name politicians are now talking about changing that. One of the things I hear time and again is how difficult it is economically to make ends meet, particularly when the child comes home from the hospital, when mom or dad has to leave work, often an unpaid leave, and be able

to provide for that little child. We are the only industrialized country in the world that doesn't guarantee some form of paid leave. And that's why we have decided now is the time to step up and really do something about this. We think it's time to catch up with other countries. A huge percentage of women have no paid parental leave in this country. And a lot of women have to go back to work even, you know, within like 10 days after giving birth. And for a lot of parents, that means making a choice between breastfeeding or working, unfortunately. And I think the two of us, so we were working, we were breastfeeding, we were both pumping at work. Can you describe how a breast pump works for the uninitiated? Yeah, so I did not know how complicated this process would be until I was trying out my first pump when I was about two months postpartum.

So a typical breast pump has sort of a pump unit that's electric and that has some tubes. You connect the tubes to the pump unit. Then you build this contraption that goes over your breast. You can't drop them. They have to be very clean. So you put them all together. You connect them to the tube. You fit them over your breast.

Then once you've got yourself situated, you flick a switch. You pump for between 10 and 30 minutes a session. And then you've got to store your milk in the fridge or it'll go bad. And then you have to clean all your parts. Yeah, it's a lot. The thing I didn't understand when I went into it is how much of my brain would be taken up with, like, do I have all my parts? Do I have a way to transport them? If I'm going somewhere after work, how do I keep the milk cold? It's like a whole, it felt like I was managing this huge supply chain that was both inside and outside my body. So much. It's a huge thing. And actually, I phased out pumping around six months. My son is about 10 months now. And I would say even more

than like the time I got back at work that I wasn't pumping. It was that brain space and time of like not thinking like, do I have all my clean parts today? Do I have the thing that keeps the milk cold if I need to go to an event after work? And once I wasn't doing that anymore, I felt like I got this whole part of my life back. And it felt, I don't know if you felt this way, it almost felt like this tax on my time that my husband, who was also working, didn't have to pay. Yeah, unquestionably. Right. And not like a place where I can negotiate,

like I'm going to be the pumping parent or you will be the pumping parent. Right, right, yeah. So let's talk about the pros and cons of pumping. Why don't we start with the good parts? Like what comes to mind? What motivated you to pump? What did you learn about what motivates women to pump at work? Right, so the pros are you can feed your baby breast milk

while you're working. So there's health benefits to that. And there's also real emotional benefits that a lot of parents feel in terms of being able to breastfeed their babies. And for me, a big thing that pumping did was enable me to keep up my supply so that I could still breastfeed my baby when I was with him on the weekends and mornings and evenings. Yeah, that is something I really didn't understand until I was breastfeeding was like, if I wanted to do this outside of work, I would also have to pump at work. And once I think I stopped pumping when my son was like seven or eight months old, and it's just like the supply shuts down when you're not pumping like the chain kind of is like, okay, time to end production. Right? Yeah. And I didn't realize that

either. I think a lot of people don't before they have a baby that it's a supply and demand thing. So you have to keep demanding the milk. And that's a big part of what the pump does is like keep up that demand. Otherwise, yeah, your supply will drop off. What about the cons? It seems like the list might be a little longer. Kind of what are the problems with pumping? So much. For me, and I think for a lot of women, a huge issue is time. When I was pumping at the most, it was probably 90 minutes out of every workday. Now, that doesn't mean that I couldn't work. You know, a lot of my work takes place on a laptop, so I could bring my laptop into our lactation room, which we thankfully at Fox we have, and I could continue working.

But there's still setup. There's breakdown. There's the fact that, like, I could be in the middle of something, and then I suddenly would have to go pump. And, you know, I'm a journalist, but for people who are on their feet at work, it's much harder. So police officer, doctors, nurses, teachers, it's hard to figure that time in. And I think that's part of why there may actually be a salary cost to pumping. So we know there's a recent study showing that women who breastfeed for longer, they may pay a higher wage penalty than other mothers relative to women who don't breastfeed. So I wonder if part of that is pumping.

I totally agree with you. And it kind of at some point I was involved in a Twitter conversation about like all these kind of crazy stories about trying to fit pumping into their day-to-day at work. I mean, did you come across some of those in your reporting? Tons, yeah. I mean, and just also in life. I mean, I know a lot of teachers and a lot of educators, and for them, it's incredibly hard, you know, trying to pump in a nurse's office between classes, you know, when do you fit it in? And travel is a huge issue. Yes. I pumped twice in the bathroom of an Amtrak train. I've done that, too.

I do not endorse that experience. No, it's bad. A thing that I noticed that I think is funny is, like, people would sort of share war stories. Like, they would be like, this is, like, the worst, craziest place I ever pumped. So I am currently pumping underneath the suit jacket of Terminal A in the Detroit airport, hoping that no one is noticing me because the lactation room is too far away from the gate for me to be able to make it there and back in time for my flight. I went to Costa Rica and ended up pumping standing in a two-hour customs line

because there was no way in hell I was getting out of it and going back to the back. So I just whipped out my manual breast pump right there in front of everyone else stuck in line with me. I've pumped while parked and while driving in cars very carefully. And I've pumped in all kinds of nooks and crannies and closets and darkened and used conference spaces and office buildings. People are so weird and uncomfortable with pumping in public, but I actually think it's like super easy to cover up and that most of the time other people are so involved in their phones or their laptop or whatever it is that they're doing that they don't even notice. I was a new mom and I was in grad school doing cadaver work for four and a half hours a day and I needed to pump in the middle of that and so I started out pumping in a college bathroom

and then eventually because it was just easier and colder I would do it in the cadaver fridge because I could get myself in there and no one usually would come in. And I would just keep my breast milk in there. That way it would be nicely refrigerated. So, yes, next to the dead bodies. Yeah, the things we do. And do we know, so women who either find they can't keep up with the time commitment, they don't have the space, what are they doing to feed their babies generally?

Switching to formula or milk banks or kind of do we know anything about what happens when you transition off pumping? I mean, in most cases, if you're not pumping, you are feeding your baby formula, you know, at a certain point, you also can start feeding your baby solids. But yeah, generally, formula is making up that slack. And do you get a sense, you know, from the reporting you've done, are workplaces trying to be more accommodating or is it kind of a mixed bag? Or how are workplaces handling this period in new moms' lives? You know, I think it's a real mixed bag. I think there's a growing sense that pumping is something that women do, especially because there's more women in the workforce now, certainly, than there

were in the 70s and 80s. There's been some efforts to normalize pumping, but I will say that just from a lot of parents that I talk to, awareness is not that high. It's also true that pumps weren't as popular until about the 1990s, So people who had their children before then might not even be familiar with them. I mean, I've often felt torn about this on the one hand, where I feel like I should just tell people what I'm doing. Like I'm producing food for a child, but I also like never quite got to the point where I was comfortable being like, can't make that meeting or like, I like, where are you going? I'm going off to pump. It still felt like a weird thing to talk about. Yeah, you know, there's still a stigma that working mothers face,

and it's still real, the idea that people might think less of you or not want to work with you again if they know that you're spending time taking care of your baby. So I report on this stuff every day, and I shouldn't have to think about that. But I did sometimes wonder, like, if I tell this source that I'm pumping, are they going to think I'm less committed? Oh, totally. It feels like a very confusing area to navigate between embracing it but also not wanting it to be, you know, identifying you.

Definitely. And, I mean, the other thing, too, is that since there aren't necessarily a lot of supports for pumping, like you're in a situation a lot where you might ask for favors or accommodations. After the break, what working mothers really need. And a hint, it is not just a better breast pump. Big banking is, or maybe I should say was, broken. There are high fees, deposits are used to fund pipelines and oil drilling, but it doesn't have to be this way. It's why a lot of folks are looking to Aspiration, a financial firm for those who want more money in their pockets and the more power to do good. Aspiration has been featured in Forbes,

the New York Times, and Money Magazine. They offer a 2% annual percentage yield, zero ATM fees anywhere in the world, and the option to choose your own monthly fee, even if it's zero. Plus, Aspiration commits 10% of their earnings to charities that help other Americans and offers cashback rewards for shopping at socially conscious businesses. Everyone deserves a financial firm that's fair, provides great products, and helps you make more money while making a difference. Put your money where One thing this has gotten me all thinking about was, do you know what options our moms and grandmothers had?

Were breast pumps even a thing before, you know, this generation, the last generation? Yeah, it's a good question. I asked my mom about this when I started pumping, and she said she—so I was born in 83. My brother was born in 83. My brother was born in 88. She said that she could kind of remember pumping with my brother, but not very much. And that there certainly wasn't a good setup for her at her workplace. And I think she stopped after not very long. So we know breast pumps in some form have been around since the 19th century, but they weren't, you know, widely used. And they really became more widely used in the 90s because that's when these sort of, they call them double electric pumps.

So it's electric and double means there's like a part that goes on each breast. Instead of like these manual pumps that you're like squeezing yourself to get the milk out. And also that they were developed for your home. So like there might have been pumps that were for hospital use before, but ones that are sort of small enough and portable enough that you can have it in your house. That was really a 1990s invention. So anybody who was having kids before that, they probably didn't have this experience. And also breastfeeding just wasn't emphasized in the same way. So I was talking to women who are older than me in the course of my life as a new mom, and they would talk about stories about being told not to breastfeed because formula is more scientific, stories about being given a drug to stop your milk. Just it was a really different environment for moms.

It feels like in the last few years, we've seen a few more examples of high-profile women talking about breastfeeding. There was one woman who breastfed on a parliament floor. And I remember Rachel McAdams, she was on a magazine cover a few months ago actually wearing her breast pump. So yeah, Rachel McAdams was on the cover of this magazine called Girls, Girls, Girls, beautifully know, beautifully dressed in like Versace diamonds. And then she's hooked up to a breast pump. And I know that image, you know, really went viral. I first saw it, I think, on Instagram. It was the hottest thing in my mom's group, WhatsApp. And then there's also Michael Phelps's wife, Nicole Phelps, you know, Michael Phelps, the Olympian. They have two children now, and she was breastfeeding one of them and went to a gala,

you know, without the baby and posted on Instagram a photo of herself hooked up to a breast pump actually under her gown. So she was wearing one of these newer wearable pumps. So I think we're starting to see some normalization around it. But I just feel like there's lots of situations where it would be fine to breastfeed, where it would not be socially fine to pump. Anna, you wrote this great story for Vox on this quest to build a better breast pump that is lighter, wearable, doesn't have a clunky charger. Listeners can definitely check that out online. But one thing that jumped out at me is they were pretty expensive, like $500, and insurance doesn't cover those fancy new ones. Will a better breast pump be enough,

or do working moms and families need a lot more than that? So I thought a lot about this as I was reporting on this issue and also just as I was pumping. I think there are problems that a better breast pump would definitely solve, but there's really bigger factors at work here. One of them really is that we've seen this real increased emphasis on breastfeeding your baby. You know, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends it, and yet we haven't really developed supports around it. So if you're supposed to breastfeed your baby until six months, but a lot of women have to go back to work after 10 days, there's a disconnect there. We haven't figured that out as a society. You know, and there's also just, even irrespective

of paid leave, there's a general sense that feeding the baby is supposed to be the mom's problem. Like, just you figure it out. Like, you make whatever changes you need to in your schedule, you make whatever accommodations you need so you can feed the baby, but nobody else is going to really support you. Like maybe your partner supports you, but like is your workplace going to support you? Is a random meeting that you're at going to support you? I don't know that as a society in the United States, we're at a place where we're supporting the moms who were expecting to breastfeed their babies. So can you envision a future where breast pumps are pretty much non-existent? And like, what are the steps to getting to that future?

Yeah, it's a really good question. There's some research showing that between four and six months is an ideal amount of paid leave, both to allow parents to bond with the baby, but also to not disadvantage the mother's career too much. And by four to six months, many mothers may be ready to stop breastfeeding. Other mothers may want to continue breastfeeding. I mean, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding exclusively until six months, but some breastfeeding up to a year, and some people continue breastfeeding for long after that. So I certainly can see situations where

even if we had really great paid leave that was mandated in this country, it wouldn't necessarily cover the entire time that a parent wanted to breastfeed and that a pump could fill that gap. But I think that it's possible to imagine a place where the pump isn't the primary way that the mother is able to feed the baby. I'm curious, you know, for you as a mom, someone who's reported on these issues, where would you like to see things in five to ten years? Like, what's your version of this ideal world in your view? It's just not possible to talk about this without talking about paid leave. I think paid leave is just a huge part of this ideal world in your view? It's just not possible to talk about this without

talking about paid leave. I think paid leave is just a huge part of this. And so all my reporting both on this but on other related issues just suggests that if we had longer mandated paid parental leave in this country, that it would be easier for parents to feed their babies and go back to work with the knowledge that their babies had been fed in the healthiest way that they chose. I would also like to see breast pumps get better. I would like to see it not take forever to take apart, put together, clean, sterilize. I would like to see a solution to that problem. The other thing, too, is I do think I'd like to get to a place

where pumping is a little bit more normalized and where there's not a sense that it's gross or something you should be hiding. Anna North covers gender issues and reproductive rights for Vox. I'm Sarah Cliff, and this is Today Explained. Sean Ramos-Firm will be back tomorrow. Support for today's show comes from Aspiration, a financial partner that wants to help you make money while making a difference. Enjoy 2% annual percentage yield, zero ATM fees, and help save the planet with Aspiration's fossil fuel free account. Save money, save the planet. Download the Aspiration app to open an account today.