Field Pumping Victories, Progress, and Perils

We are not always able to bring our children in the field with us.  It just doesn't make sense in a lot of situations.  There are logistical challenges to not bringing the children, just as with any working parent, such as coordinating childcare etc..  If that parent is a breastfeeding mother, and needs to pump while not with her child, those logistical challenges can result in some heroic, harrowing, and humorous situations in the field.  We will update and add to this post as new anecdotes come in.

Before we get into the weeds on this, I think it is important to point out that every single breastfeeding working mom handles this, we deal with it fine, and generally without you even being aware of it.  Let the mom be the judge about what she can handle.  All moms and situations are different, and there is no need for other people to preemptively decide what these parent researchers can and can not manage, especially when it's not something you have personally dealt with.

To fully understand some of these stories, you need to understand a bit about breastfeeding and pumping.  For those unfamiliar with the purpose, need, and process of pumping in general - here is a quick tutorial.  The process is fairly similar to what dairy cows go through... If a woman is nursing her child, her body is making as much milk as the child currently taking out.  Production doesn't immediately cease when she isn't with the kid.  If she doesn't pump, after awhile she will experience engorgement and leakage, both of which are fairly self explanatory.  That sends a signal to her body that she doesn't need to produce as much milk in the future, which is not the case if she plans to continue breastfeeding.  Therefore, she also needs to take the milk out to keep her production up to the level her child needs.  Hence the milk extraction process.

The pumping process varies between models of pumps, but there are some consistent themes.  There is an electric motor (usually with a battery power option), that creates suction.  There are tubes from the motor that go to funnels placed on the breasts, and bottles attach to the front of the funnels to collect the milk.  There are special bras that will hold the funnel/bottle combo in place, and this allows a mom to work with her hands while she pumps.  Being able to be productive during pumping is important, because the process is not like dumping out a cup, it is more like emptying out a spray bottle by squirting it a bunch of time.  Milk extraction can take awhile (~10-20 min).  The entire process is creating food for babies, so all the parts need to be kept sterile if the baby is getting that milk later.  This means somewhere to wash, and possibly boil, components.  If that level of cleanliness isn't possible, there is always the pump and dump (which is sad, because that stuff is liquid gold), but being somewhere with access to clean water or sterilizing wipes is preferred.  Then the milk needs to be safely stored.  It can be refrigerated for up the three days, or frozen for up to three months (but that requires consistent access to refrigeration or ice).  Airlines technically allow frozen milk to be transported, if stringent rules are followed, but not all airline employees realize this, and there are plenty of stories of multiple weeks worth of milk being thrown out even when rules were followed.

So, for all of the reasons above, sometimes it really is easier and less time consuming to just have the baby in the field (with the mom, or in the vicinity with a caregiver).  That being said, sometimes that just isn't feasible to bring baby, so here are the promised heroic,  harrowing, and humous tales from the rock star field researcher pumping moms.

**We will update this with additional stories as they come in, so please share yours!  Let's normalize this and support upcoming field researcher parents!***

1. "I taught a field course in Saint Lucia while pumping. I could not afford to bring my family, plus we were on a scuba diving boat all day every day, no place for baby/dad to be asked to hang out! I pumped the whole time and was able to keep up my supply and bring back the last 6 days worth of the milk. I pumped between dives on the boat with my manual Medela breastpump (HIGHLY recommend!!) under a nursing cover, stored milk on the boat in a cooler, and use pump sanitizing wipes (the Medela ones) to sanitize. There was no way to have privacy on the boat other than my nursing cover. I think it was actually really good for my students to see a pumping mom and see how dedicated I was to both them (teaching the course) and my family. They learned a lot about pumping and no one was weird about it at all. It really was great!"  - Melissa Meadows
2. "I pumped when at work for roughly a year, in the office and in the field.   I'll save the office stories for another time, but here is one of an unplanned field pump.  When my son was about 8 months old, I was working as a consultant, and I had a site visit with a client.   By that time, I had been pumping while at work for awhile, and was a pro at timing it so I could slip away and pump between commitments, or during water breaks during surveys.  We had a three hour meeting scheduled, which was no problem.  I pumped prior to the meeting, and then headed over.  But the meeting went over time, and then the client wanted to go and visit the entire site with us.  As the meeting stretched out to 5 hours, other things were stretching as well!  I was getting fairly uncomfortable, and leakage was imminent.  I didn't feel comfortable telling the client, who I didn't know well, the situation.  But luckily the other person I was in the field with was a Mom, I quietly explained the situation to her, and she understood and was on board to help.  We told the client that I had a previously scheduled conference call, which is a perfectly acceptable corporate reason to need to step away if a meeting ran overtime.  She took over the meeting on foot, and I took the vehicle to a stand of trees and pumped out as much as possible in 10 minutes, and returned to the group.  It all worked out fine!  But I was extra careful to ask about the possibility of extended follow up site visits after that.  Most of my fieldwork was carried out within reasonable proximity to a vehicle, so it was easy to keep a cooler in the car and pump in there.  I could pump between field sites, while everyone was getting to vehicles and often breaking for a snack and water anyway.  For those wondering, I used a Medela pump, those things are efficient, and for the field they come with batteries and car plug adapters - woo hoo.  There are also small coolers that plug into car lighter ports, and those are nice to have for the milk if you have a vehicle (or even just a car battery) but not ready access to ice." - Anonymous 
3. Great article about international fieldwork while pumping - https://fieldsecrets.wordpress.com/2018/02/27/international-travel-field-work-while-breastfeeding-a-mommys-tale/
4. Article about "(Re) productive fieldwork", including during pregnancy and while pumping.  Includes loads of good advice and relatable anecdotes.    "Milk, Guilt, and Turtles" - https://fieldsecrets.wordpress.com/2021/01/26/milk-guilt-and-turtles/
5. [Insert your story here :)]

(Re)productive fieldwork: Milk, guilt, and turtles

 Lovely article by Callie Golba about pumping while doing wildlife ecology fieldwork in swampy conditions.  Includes advice about things to consider, great anecdotes.  

Some gems from the article: 

"I was only in my first trimester during the previous (re)productive field season, so the only thing that changed was my morning sickness.  I would just pretend I was searching for a turtle while I discreetly threw-up into the marsh."

"there are a ton of other considerations when pumping in the field.  Can I pump in a stand of cattails next to my turtle traps?  How long will my milk stay fresh in my wader pocket?"

https://fieldsecrets.wordpress.com/2021/01/26/milk-guilt-and-turtles/

Stumbling and toddling through (field)work: the first two years

By Seeta Sistla

Setting up micrometeorological stations 39 weeks pregnant and consumed by an early summer heat wave was less challenging than I had imagined it would be. Holding my month old child while trying to coordinate a small new field project proved more challenging – and ultimately unfeasible.  In the 2 years since the birth of our first child, my learning curve combining motherhood with ecological research has been sometimes steep but always worthwhile.

I became a parent early in my career as an ecology professor at a small liberal arts college. Without the support of family due to a combination of distance and our own aging parents, my husband (also an academic) and I have been largely on our own to embark in the new world of parenting while also trying to build our field research-based careers.  In the first year of my son’s life, my remote field work took a break while I focused on learning to be a new parent, navigating occasional stints of lone parenting while my husband was away for extended periods for his own research, 8-hour field courses which required (subtly) pumping milk in a class van, and those who remarked that parental leave is like a holiday (which I am grateful was balanced by others who recognized a period of reduced professional responsibilities after becoming a parent should be the norm rather than the exception).

While there have been distinct challenges – ranging from scheduling field and lab work around my son’s daycare schedule to attending a national meeting with a 14 month old while my husband’s research project took him across the world – we’ve also experienced a myriad of unexpected benefits. When my son has joined me in the field and lab, we have always been with students, whose curiosity and excitement is amplified by showing him why they’re doing the tasks at hand.

Our son's first time in daycare was at the 2017 Ecological Society of America meeting. The childcare providers were wonderful.  But frightened by the myriad of changes, he didn't last more than 2 hours. We attended the meeting together after that, which was challenging, but mostly successful

Earlier this summer, I had my first major field excursion since becoming a parent– over 2 weeks in a remote area of western Alaska accessible only by float plane – while my son stayed home with my husband. Although I would love to introduce my son to the Arctic, because of the nature of my field work, traveling as a family is neither practical nor safe. While I deeply worried for how our son would deal with my travel and lack of communication, in the end, I am grateful to report it was me who suffered his absence rather than the reverse. While my husband had already been away for multiple weeks in far flung locales since our son was born, I had serious reservations about traveling for so long and with so little potential for contact when my son had just turned two. In retrospect, it was a liberating experience for our whole family, and I encourage other young parents to feel confident in their decision to continue to pursue their research ambitions flexibly – with or without their children as possible and desired.

I’m writing this piece from Namibia – where I am the trailing spouse for my husband’s work. We’ve visited beautiful national parks and an ecological research station in the Namib Desert, walked across dunes and besides one of world’s largest sea lion colonies. My son has picked up every imaginable iteration of scat and skeleton fragment, combed the red Kalahari sand, and exclaimed with joy when we found fluorescent scorpions on night hikes. But, finding childcare was a large stumbling block, leading to moments of profound frustration as we tried to manage work obligations while also entertaining a 2 year old (who was missing other kids) in an extended stay hotel where freely playing outside was impossible.

Exploring the Namib Desert.
Scorpions, sand-hiding snakes, and the scorching sun
could not stop our son.

We ultimately found a combination of a playgroup and babysitter by asking US Embassy staff (who often travel as families) and local parents that we met in passing for advice. Learning from our experience, we now realize that when planning lengthy travel for field work, we must be proactive in finding a space and context that will accommodate the shifting needs of our growing son, which will likely mean extending our planned time away to accommodate finding necessities (i.e. a playgroup, safe and reliable childcare).  

Parenting in general, and especially when trying to combine the endeavor with one’s work, requires remembering to laugh when things don’t go as planned. Like when we tried to participate in the opening event for artist David Buckley Borden’s ‘Hemlock Hospice’ instillation within the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research Site, which went well until we and had to step off to tour while our son wailed at not being able to touch the art.

Things were going well until they weren’t.
A family visit to the Hemlock Hospice exhibit
among the dying hemlocks in the
Harvard Forest LTER, Pertersham, MA. 

Having our son has changed my relationship with my work and in many ways fundamentally shifted how I move through my days. Our tiny child also makes me all the more aware of the enormous environmental challenges he will face and motivates me as an educator while also encouraging me to live in the moment and continue to find wonder in the natural (and human) world.