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Pumping And Nursing Pods In Airports: Brilliant or Barmy?

Airport pods for breastfeeding mums

Have you ever set foot in an airport and thought 'What this place REALLY needs is a dedicated pod for breastfeeding mothers'? Nope, me neither.

Which is why it makes little sense to me that one American company has created dedicated breastfeeding booths in selected airports.

The Huffington Post reports:

"Seventh Generation have sponsored and installed four nursing pods in New York area airports, solely as a place to breastfeed your children. Yes, really."

The pods are reportedly 4ft by 8ft wide, and are, um, 'furnished' with two benches and plug sockets. That sounds a little too much like a prison cell, if you ask me! But plenty of mums are totally delighted with them, and the company behind the pods has even created their own app to make it easy for mums to find them.

The firm's 'manager of mission advocacy and outreach' said:

"Airports can be stressful environments and are busy, and we want to give moms a clean and comfortable area where they can pump or nurse."

We can't wait to hear what you think of this.

Personally, I'm all for anything that reduces the chances of a mother feeling like the public toilet is her best option when it comes to finding somewhere to feed her baby, but I'm less than thrilled at the idea that I should hide away in a dedicated cubby hole to do so.

Plus what do you do if you have more than one child?! I can't see my older siblings being happy to sit in one of these with me while I feed the baby, but I don't like the idea of them waiting outside where I can't keep my eye on them.

I can see that having somewhere clean and private to express milk could be handy for pumping mamas, but I've yet to see anyone doing that in a public place anyway, so I'm not totally convinced there's a case for that. But maybe I'm missing something.

Would you use a pod like this to feed your baby or express breastmilk, or are you also bothered by the notion that nursing mums should hide themselves away?

* I feel compelled to add to this that I hadn't appreciated that so many new mums feel anxious about breastfeeding in public, so absolute kudos to those of you who have commented on our Facebook page to say that you'd really welcome these in the UK. If they make just a handful of mums feel better about breastfeeding their babies then I'm all for them, after all...*

 

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1 comment

  • LMBBBBB
    I think the key here is that this is an American company in America. I work closely with a lot of young mums in America and they only get 6 weeks maternity leave, 10 weeks if they have a C section, so breastfeeding for them is a huge struggle. If they want to then they have no choice but to express at work and send milk to day care. I think these pods are probably more aimed at pumping mums rather than breastfeeding mums, since there are a lot more in the US than there are in the UK. It seems crazy to us, but it really wouldn't to them - most of them have to pump in the public toilet so they'd probably think this was a much better option!
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