It seems that something is changing in companies, at least in large companies, around motherhood and fatherhood. It's not a big deal, there is still a long way to go because family reconciliation is little less than a joke, but at least we have been able to see how Virgin will give her workers a paternity leave of 12 months and Nestlé will offer 20 weeks to fathers and mothers, above the 16 established by the government.
IBM, the great multinational that we all know for their advances in the world of computing, has also wanted to have a gesture, this time towards mothers, and that is when they are breastfeeding and for work issues they have to travel, it offers them the possibility to collect the extracted milk and send it to their homes.
The problem of nursing mothers traveling
Everyone ends up finding a solution, but mothers who breastfeed and have to travel, leaving home and away from their child, have a problem, or more than one. The biggest is that they leave their son on the ground, and that separation, you want it not, generates concern about that of not being present (concern for the mother and anxiety for the son, who does not know if his mother has left a few days or forever). The youngest, but not for that reason banal, continuous milk production which, to avoid engorgements and major problems, such as mastitis, require periodic extraction.
That milk that is extracted can be saved or it can be thrown away, but when a mother removes milk at home to leave her child, which usually costs, because she goes on a trip, pumping milk in the distance to have to throw it is The less hard.
The problem if you keep it is that you are traveling, and the logistics are complicated: store the milk in valid containers, have a refrigerator in the hotel, then be able to keep it cold to take it home (practically impossible task) or hire a pick up service to send it home, cold, depending on where you are can be very expensive.
That's where IBM comes in
The company has decided that if a woman, mother, has to travel because her work requires it, she must at least feel comfortable or, at the very least, know that everything is being done to minimize discomfort.
That is why he has decided that, starting in September, a program that facilitate the whole process of collecting and sending milk to women. Apparently, it will create a mobile application for them through which they can manage the issue.
The idea is that the woman, when she knows the destination and the time she will be out, indicates in the application the number of packages for cold storage she will need. Once I arrived at the hotel you will have the packages at reception, which will be collected and sent to your home as you fill them. Everything is obviously run by IBM.
Other companies offer a reimbursement service, that is, the woman removes the milk, hires the collection service, sends it and then passes the bill to her company, which reimburses the expenses. IBM wanted to go further and make the mother not have to be aware of all those details.
It's enough?
No, of course it is not enough. Other companies, for example, allow, when a trip is longer than 4 days, go with the mother another person and the baby, all in charge of the companies, so that when they return to the hotel mother and baby can be together.
The ideal, the great, what would make many women travel happier and calmer, would be that they could always travel with the baby, if they consider it appropriate. Of course, it is not the same to speak of a 5-month-old baby than of an 18-month-old child, who may also be breastfeeding, so it would be a detail, an incredible gesture, to give the possibility to mothers who wish to travel with The baby and another person should spend at least one night out. A night out doesn't seem like much, but for babies it's an eternity. That would be to reconcile work with family life.
Meanwhile, the management of milk extracted by IBM is great news that we hope will be the beginning of a series of policies that take more into account women who are mothers.
