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Home › Articles › The Working, Nursing Mother › Nursing Mother, Working Mother: The Essential Guide for Breastfeeding and Staying Close to Your Baby After You Return to Work

Nursing Mother, Working Mother: The Essential Guide for Breastfeeding and Staying Close to Your Baby After You Return to Work

By Gale Pryor

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Whether or not they care that nursing is good for their health, most nursing mothers would say that breastfeeding's primary benefit is convenience. Although breastfed babies nurse more frequently than do formula-fed babies, the non-nursing mother must dedicate a great deal of time to purchasing and mixing formula, cleaning bottles and nipples, and warming bottles. Unlike formula, breast milk is always ready, warm, and, as long as the baby continues to nurse frequently, plentiful. When the baby is hungry, the breastfeeding mother simply finds a comfortable place to sit or lie down with him. At night, whereas the formula-feeding parent must wake up and get out of bed to prepare a bottle, the breastfeeding mother can have her baby brought to her, or, if her baby is sharing her bed, nurse without ever fully waking up. A breastfed baby is also highly portable: There are no bottles to pack and carry; there is no need to find a place to mix formula and heat the bottle. A spare diaper in her purse, and the breastfeeding mother and her baby are on their way.

The Benefits of Breastfeeding for Working Mothers
Many women going back to work decide that the "added stress" of nursing is the last thing they need. As many working women can attest, however, their lives are made easier rather than harder by breastfeeding. One experienced mother finds that "breastfeeding is the easier part of being a working mother. It's much harder finding time to iron a shirt."

The immunologic properties of breast milk benefit working parents as much as their babies. Breastfed babies wake their parents less often at night with earaches and stuffy noses. Because breastfed babies are generally healthier, they also tend to be happier. They cry less, smile more, and are less wearying to care for after a long day at work.

The anti-infective properties of breast milk are a real boon when a baby is or ill be in group day care. Babies in day care are exposed to more germs than are babies cared for at home. But when these babies are breastfed, they are protected against many serious bacterial and viral infections and secondary complications. And the lower incidence and severity of illness in breastfed babies reduces the time their parents must take off from work.

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