There’s a big dispute going on at my husbands work at the moment.

He is in the army and his unit was just scheduled for a field exercise at the end of this month. They were told about it on January 1st.

A woman he works with has a baby (6 months old) and she is breastfeeding. She pumps only enough milk to leave with her husband while she is at work and doesn’t have a big stash at all. She is trying to get the commander (person in charge) to allow her to stay back so she isn’t forced to put her child on formula.

Things to think about.

- She was only given a month advance and if you know anything about breastfeeding, it takes quite a bit of time to establish a good stash of milk, especially when you work 5 days a week.

- where they are training is about 3 hours away and has no refrigeration at all. Just small coolers that are shared by everyone.

- she’s going to be working the whole time and more than likely won’t have time to pump.

- if she can’t pump it’s likely she could become engorged and develop a condition called mastitis.

So what should be done? Should she be allowed to stay back from any field exercises until her child is no longer breastfed or should she be forced to go?