New Mothers' Room

We have been asking for a new mothers room for a long time. There was a mothers' room previously but they tore it down to accomodate our company's expansion.

Pumping moms were asked to express milk at the sick bay at the in-house clinic. They did separate out a section for pumping moms but security is very loose.

A few mothers had their privacy intruded by people who were
1) looking for their sick friends; or
2) plain busy bodies

It is also not hygienic or conducive as there are sometimes unwell employees at the nearby beds.

So a few of us at the company had wrote multiple emails to the HR department and the Workplace services asking for a separate Mothers' Room and to ensure privacy and security for the pumping moms.

I had also wrote to WABA for materials to support our cause. WABA was very supportive to help provide materials. But unfortunately, the breastfeeding regulations in Malaysia is very weak. Eg 68% of the countries around the world has breastfeeding breaks for working breastfeeding mothers, but sadly, Malaysia is not one of them.

So since there are no rules governing the rights of bfg mothers, we had to champion our own cause.

I had been quite lucky that i do not used the old Mothers' room very frequently last time as
1) I extended my maternity leave until my baby is 3+ months
2) I worked from home for most of the days until my baby is about 10 mths old. I have been lucky that most of the projects that I was assigned when I returned to work do not require me to be physically at the office. I only went to the office once a week.

But since about 2 months ago, I was assigned to a new project that requires me to work with the local team and thus need to be at the office most of the days.

Anyway back to the blog title, as of yesterday, we have a brand new mothers room.

It is a bit smaller than we requested- we wanted min 5 stalls but were given only 4. But nevertheless it is a BIG improvement.

There is a bigger fridge now (1 door) instead of the miserable Minibar we had later, and there's a hot water pot and sink (but no soap *aiyo*) in the room. There is also some shelves for us to put our bags.

We had also asked for notice boards to be placed in the room, so that we can post bfg articles and our babies' photos. HR promised us this in Stage 2 of the plan (whatever it means).

Anyway, although this facility comes late for me (my baby is already 1 yr old) , I am still very happy on it, and am happy for the new pumping moms in my company.