Book report: The Milk Memos

Colburn-Smith, Cate and Serrette, Andrea. The Milk Memos: How Real Moms Learned to Mix Business with Babies --- and How You Can, Too


My score
6/10

My review
From the first page, it was a bit of a tear-jerker.  How did all these women, from different backgrounds and careers and interests, know exactly how I feel every day I leave my son to go work?  This book is based on a series of interactive notebooks started by Cate in the employee lactation room at IBM.  Nursing mommas enter with pump and pen, and exit with milk and thoughts scrawled across pages of these shared notebooks.  These mommas balance work and family, but are they happy?  How does the momma that leaves her infant in the arms of another --- be it daycare, nanny, or even spouse --- answer to herself that she's doing the right thing, when every inch of her being wants, with incredible force, to be reunited with her child?  How does the momma that's at home with her child advance her career?  What can a mom whose boss just doesn't get it do?  From Cara's first day to Andrea's learning to love breastfeeding, and eventual weaning, this tale is a good glimpse, albeit too condensed, of emotional roller-coaster of a working mom's first year.

202A: Nursing and Baby Changing Room

Does anyone actually use those nursing and baby changing rooms present in each women's bathroom at the school of engineering? I mean, let's face it --- in the school of engineering, we women hover at 13% undergraduates and 26% graduates. We are swimming in a sea of solder and men.

In 1985, 37% of the graduating class in computer science was women. Now, it's 16%.

Couple that with the delayed age at which women are choosing to have children. Although the national average age of first-time moms is 25, there is an eight-fold increase in the number of women waiting until they turn at least 35 to have their first child.

I know why these nursing rooms exist. The University has least 50 employees, and so is required by law to provide safe, clean rooms to pump milk. President Obama signed into law the Reconciliation Act (2010), which allows each working mom both time and a place to pump or express milk during her workday. The place needs to be different than a bathroom, and the time needs to be ample for pumping... For an entire year after the baby's birth.

The reason we women need these nursing rooms is because the odds are against us. Without breastfeeding support from our employers, we would stop nursing. The CNN article, breastfeeding rooms hidden in health care law, reports about the dismal state of breastfeeding in the US. The Centers for Disease Control reported in 2009 that although the majority (74%) of moms initiate breastfeeding, the number of moms still nursing at three months drops (33%), and then plummets to a small fraction (14%) by six months. Meanwhile, the American Association of Pediatrics recommends at least a full year of nursing, and the World Health Organization suggests two full years per child.

Yet still, the question remains: women are in such a vast minority; women undergrad and grad students are so unlikely to have babies... who uses these rooms?

When my son was an infant, my mother would watch him for the four hours I was in class. In the break between classes, sometimes, we would meet in the nursing and baby changing room. The room is about the size of a large walk-in closet. There is a ledge that serves as a table, an oversized cushioned chair, an overhead fluorescent light, and heavy, stuffy air that would get hot within a few minutes, with all three of us crammed inside. Sometimes, when they did not come to meet me, I would pump alone in that room: liquid gold collecting for our next class period.

Once, two young students walked in on me as I was putting away the hand pumps I dual-wielded during my pumping sessions.

"Oh, sorry?" they said, as if it was a question, with the inflection rising at the end of the sentence.

"You know, you should really knock first," I replied.

"We didn't know what was in here?"

Just a chair, a table, a plug, and my thoughts.

When, a few weeks later, I stepped into the nursing room on a different floor of the same building, knocking first, I caught a glimpse of a large breast pump hidden behind the chair, covered by a blanket. Who is this mystery woman? I thought. We have things in common, she and I.

Nursing rooms are huge step in the right direction. We technical women with nurslings may be in the minority, but we need all the support we can get --- perhaps because we are in the minority. I applaud you, University, for making these rooms available. I applaud you for keeping them clean, well-lit, and private. Keep up the good work.

I never did find out who the other woman was.

Mobile device apps for contraction monitoring

In this post, I review some apps I found for mobile devices for monitoring contractions during labor. Please note that I did not use these during labor. In fact, I did not use these at all at any point.

Name: Contraction Calc (US$2.99)

Platform: Blackberry

Claim to fame: Has a Contraction Alert Notification feature that reminds you to go to the hospital. Because when in labor, sometimes you forget to have your baby.

Name: Contraction Master (US$0.99) by Bill Snebold Design

Platform: iPhone/iPod Touch

Claim to fame: It has nearly 3,000 fans on Facebook, so it must be good!

Name: Labor and Contraction Timer (Free) by Michael Kale of Earlybird Software

Platform: iPhone/iPod Touch, Android

Claim to fame: With a 20-minute average, you can see the current contraction trend. That is, when contractions are 5 minutes apart, you can see the average of the last four contractions, which, if you have taken any kind of statistics, you know is totally meaningless.

Name: Contraction Timer (Free) by Deltaworks

Platform: iPhone/iPod Touch

Claim to fame: Oh, where to start. Exhibit A (not shown): The background for the application is pink and white, vertically striped, with stripes of varying widths. No, no, no. Horizontal stripes are used in art to convey calmness, relaxation, peace, and strength. Vertical stripes portray energy, and height. Deltaworks should ask itself: Do I want to energize and possibly annoy the woman in labor (or her partner), or soothe her? Let's move on to Exhibit B. Check out this graph of duration of contractions and interval between contractions, and recall that stats class again. Would you use a bar graph to represent these things? A bar graph suggests volume or quantity. The graphing style here is inappropriate.

Name: NineMonths - Pregnancy Contraction Timer and Kick Count ($0.99) by Philip Defatta of Useful Mobile Apps

Platform: iPhone/iPod Touch

Claim to fame: Maybe I'm cynical. Maybe I'm the only one. The lack of apostrophe bothers me now, and I'm not even in labor. When I was in labor, every little thing that could possibly bother me normally was magnified a hundred-fold, so I could easily see myself throwing the iPhone across the room after timing just a couple contractions with NineMonths, simply because of that missing apostrophe. The baby movement meter (Kick Count) also sports some fantastic grammar problems: "You can reset and repeat this test according your physician instructions."

Next, the user is presented with three options to describe the contractions. This is a neat idea. However --- am I nuts? --- I can think of much more colorful adjectives to describe labor contractions than "Firm," "Moderate," and "Mild." Which one is the strongest, most intense of those three? "Firm" is a handshake. "Moderate" is middle-of-the-road. "Mild" is a salsa flavor. Although possibly good for early labor, not one of those is descriptive enough of contractions in active labor. A suggestion: Have the adjectives change intensity as contractions are seen to get closer together. Early labor adjectives can be light, medium, and intense. As labor progresses, replace the adjectives with more emotional ones. Gentle, manageable, and unpleasant. I don't know.

Another alternative is the Likert-like scale. If the app is already treating the user as a participant, ask questions.

Please read the statement and select from the following options.

This contraction was manageable.

• Strongly disagree
• Disagree
• Neither agree nor disagree
• Agree
• Strongly agree

On the other hand, this is the only app I have seen that uses a fun font, reminding the laboring mom that, indeed, a baby is coming.

Name: Contraction Tracker USA ($1.99) by hexaZen

Platform: iPhone/iPod Touch

Claim to fame: Pretty neat tracking and graphing capabilities. It shows the stage of labor, and shows how long the laboring mom has been in each stage. On the other hand, mom is the one that has to select the stage of labor, and she is unlikely to look positively on selecting Transition from Active Labor when she gets there. Also, this app is much more interesting if a complete picture of each contraction is shown. Unfortunately, tracking each contraction is as tedious as it is unnecessary (and, indeed, has been shown to be medically and emotionally detrimental).

Name: Contraction (Free) by Eric Viegas of KYNOU.com

Platform: iPhone/iPod Touch

Claim to fame: It's simple. In fact, it's text-only. Nothing like reading a wall of text when you're in labor!

Name: Contraction Timer and Fetal Kick Counter ($0.99) by Quality Work Software, LLC

Platform: iPhone/iPod Touch

Claim to fame: I hope you like Comic Sans. The whole app is covered with it! Comic Sans is like a blackberry bush that never dies, but the thorns are scary clowns from 1994 that make you cry. Remember that apostrophe? "When a Contraction Ends, Rank It's Strength." Don't worry, mom-to-be: contractions are statistically proven to be less painful when viewed with Comic Sans.

This app provides tons of information, including perceived contraction strength, interval, and duration, as well as the trend among the last three contractions. If you are prone to worrying, there is a myriad of information about the progress of your labor about which you can worry between contractions.

Name: Baby Time - Pregnancy Contraction Timer ($3.99) by Slave Turtle, LLC

Platform: iPhone/iPod Touch

Claim to fame: The front screen (with the timer) shows a creepy lady grinning from ear to ear. If I were in the throes of labor, I may punch her. Now, check out the reviews. If you accidentally start the timer, you're stuck with a contraction in your history that will throw off your data, unless you're cool with deleting your entire log. On the other hand, this app has information about contraction patterns and stages of labor, and the analysis tool takes your charted contractions and tells you which stage of labor you are most likely experiencing, based on the last seven contractions. Contraction intensity is self-reported on a slider, which, because it is a continuous measurement, has the benefit of being as precise as you like. The endpoints of the slider are adaptive, as they are part of the mom's (or her partner's, if he is the one charting the contractions) mental model, and their meanings can change over time.