Base breast-feeding rules trumped by new Army policy

The Army included few specifics in its official breast-feeding and lactation policy to allow greater flexibility for commanders to meet the nursing needs of new mothers, an Army spokesman said.

This could be good news for soldiers who require longer or more frequent breaks than detailed guidance might allow, but it could be bad news for existing policies on Army installations that offer breakdowns of the benefits that should be provided to nursing mothers.

The Fort Bliss, Texas, policy released in June, for example, says nursing moms should be “afforded the opportunity every 2-3 hours for 30-40 minutes to pump breast milk during a normal 8 hour workday.” It also forbids the use of a bathroom as a pumping station; the Army policy allows it, providing the station is set up in a “fully enclosed, separate area” within the restroom.

The Bliss policy is under review “to ensure it is consistent with the Army’s policy,” installation spokesman Lt. Col. Craig Childs said in an e-mail. Requests to speak with those who crafted the policy were not granted.

Staff Sgt. Stephanie Rosario, who played a leading role in the development of a breast-feeding and lactation policy for Fort Huachuca, Ariz., said her team pulled specifics on break times, lactation facilities and other needs from other services' guidelines and federal requirements as they assembled the directive.

Rosario, now on terminal leave after nine years of active duty and heading into the Army Reserve, said she reviewed the Army's guidance and was "shocked by its simplicity."

"I thought what they would've done was to look at all the other services and take away all the great things that the other services have already in place," she said. "I didn't see too much of that. I think it leaves too much room for interpretation."

The Fort Huachuca policy is undergoing legal review prior to final approval by the commanding general, a base spokeswoman said. She did not address questions regarding how such a review may be influenced by the Army-wide guidelines.

The Army released its servicewide breast-feeding policy at the end of September, becoming the final military branch to do so. The issue of breast-feeding moms in the military gained attention when a photo of 10 soldiers breast-feeding in uniform at Fort Bliss, Texas, was shared thousands of times on Facebook within a day of its posting.

“The Army Directive is the only policy,” Paul Prince, a spokesman with the Army’s personnel branch, said in an e-mail. “However, this policy is not too prescriptive as to afford commanders flexibility in supporting individual soldiers' needs/requests because their needs/requests may vary. Being too specific or prescriptive in policy may hinder commanders’ flexibility to meet the unique needs of individual soldiers.”

The establishment of a pumping station in a bathroom is within federal law, Prince said, citing a section of the Fair Labor Standards Act, amended by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which states that employers must provide a place “that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from co-workers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk.”

The legislation also states the provided location should be somewhere “other than a bathroom,” while the Army guidance expressly rules out the use of a bathroom stall. Other services use their own vernacular — Navy guidance prohibits a pumping facility in “a toilet space,” for instance — but critics say even introducing the idea of a pumping station in a bathroom in an otherwise-unspecific policy sends the wrong message.

“Where it says that you can use a restroom but it needs to be closed off — that is going to get overrun,” said Robyn Roche-Paull, a certified lactation consultant, former enlisted sailor and author of a book on breast-feeding in the military. “They’re going to see ‘restroom’ and say, ‘OK, you can use that. We cordoned it off, so go at it.’ It should not say anything about a restroom.”

Soldier feedback, advice from medical experts and existing policy all helped form the new guidance, Prince said. Commanders with questions regarding the policy or seeking resources on the issue can contact lactation consultants on their installation, Prince said.

Expanding that type of education is critical to establishing proper benefits for new mothers in uniform, said Rosario, who served as the noncommissioned officer-in-charge of her base's Pregnancy Postpartum Physical Training program before beginning work on the installation policy.

"If commanders and first sergeants had an understanding and an education of what breast-feeding and pumping breast milk entail, then the support just kind of falls into place," she said. "I've dealt with soldiers who've come to me and said, 'They think I can do it only once a day.' ... Either they're not parents, or they are parents and they've never experienced the process."

The directive will be included in the next update of Army Command Policy.