McHenry, IL, March 04, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Medela, with Mamava and Milk Stork – the leading brands behind New Moms' Healthy Returns – are calling on business leaders to help new parents in the workplace by encouraging companies to institute basic protections and benefits for mothers. Last year, more than 2 million women left or were forced out of the workforce due to the COVID-19 pandemic.1 As the U.S. economy looks to grow and move forward, business leaders must take a stand in supporting women at a critical crossroad in their personal and professional lives: the transition to motherhood, especially during these unprecedented times.
“COVID-19 had tremendous impact on mothers in the workforce,” explains Melissa Gonzales, RN and executive vice president of the Americas for Medela. “We must invest in women– and I’ve seen first-hand how supporting motherhood in the workplace is a simple and mutually beneficial endeavor that more organizations need to embrace. It is both the right thing to do, and it makes good business sense. It is time for leaders in positions of power and influence to stand up for the future of motherhood. After all, without mothers, there is no future."
The leaders shared a list of recommendations to improve the support for mothers in the workplace in an open letter this week. Within the list, the leaders outline the opportunity that business leaders have to improve their company’s retention, attract new talent and expand and diversify the leadership pipeline by designing the workplace with parents in mind.
Parental leave: Every new mother must have time to recover from birth, bond with her baby and establish breastfeeding without facing a loss of wages. Consider this: 43 percent of mothers leave the workforce within three months of childbirth.2 According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), it can cost up to 200 percent of an employee’s salary to replace them, not to mention the cultural cost of losing female talent.
Lactation Support: Every company must have a dedicated lactation space, a clearly defined lactation policy and other benefits that help mothers meet their breastfeeding goals. More than $17 billion3 would be saved in the U.S. each year if 90 percent of women breastfed for six months; yet only one-in-four mothers make it to this milestone.4
“Despite FMLA protections, we know moms are pumping in bathrooms, closets and cars, or they are giving up,” explains Sascha Mayer, CEO and Co-Founder of Mamava. “As leaders, we must do better for our employees’ families today for the health of future generations.”
Inclusivity: Every workplace culture should be consciously inclusive of breastfeeding employees. These steps are essential to establishing a healthy economy, providing support to employees at a time they’re most vulnerable to leaving and highlighting the value mothers bring to the workforce.
“Working women are absolutely critical to this country, through their contributions to society and the economy,” said Kate Torgersen, CEO and Founder of Milk Stork. “Companies who invest in working women and acknowledge, embrace and celebrate life outside of work will reap the benefits of an engaged and loyal talent pool, creating a more profitable business.”
Medela, Mamava and Milk Stork have come together to improve the support available to mothers in the workplace. New Moms’ Healthy Returns provides Medela breastfeeding products and resources, Mamava lactation space solutions, 24/7 access to pediatric experts and breast milk shipping for traveling employees.
To learn about the benefits of gender equity on workplace culture and productivity, read the white paper accessible here: www.newmomshealthyreturns.com/whitepaper.
About Medela
With headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, and a U.S.-based manufacturing and development facility in McHenry, Illinois, Medela supports millions of moms and babies and patients in more than 100 countries all over the world. As the #1 breast pump brand*, Medela provides the best in research-based breast milk feeding products and clinical education to support moms’ breast milk feeding journeys. The company is fully dedicated to supporting mothers so that they can provide breast milk to their baby for as long as they choose. For more information, visit www.medela.us/breastfeeding.
About Mamava
Mamava, the leading expert in lactation space design, is dedicated to transforming the culture of breastfeeding in the United States by providing flexible lactation space solutions designed to meet the needs of breastfeeding families. Mamava pods are linked into a proprietary smart technology system that empowers easy wayfinding and autonomous access. Moms can open them with Mamava’s free app (available for iOS and Android). The app also allows moms to see availability of pods, opt into vacancy alerts, adjust interior lighting and airflow, and leave digital notes of support for the next person. Best of all, the app helps moms find thousands of (Mamava-vetted) places to pump on the go—not just Mamava pods, and never a bathroom. To learn more, visit Mamava at mamava.com.
About Milk Stork
Milk Stork was launched in August 2015 as the first-ever breast milk shipping company for moms who needed a simple solution for getting their breast milk to their babies back home. Working mom made, and made for working moms, Milk Stork supports more than 749 corporate partners who provide the service to their employees as an employee benefit, including Hilton, SAP, Pinterest, Nissan, and Home Depot. In February 2019, Milk Stork was awarded Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies Award in the Travel category for its unparalleled commitment to supporting working, traveling moms. In May 2020, Milk Stork launched its MotherShop™, a curated collection of innovative and unique parenting essentials that were created by moms with moms in mind. For more information on Milk Stork, visit www.milkstork.com and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
1 National Women’s Law Center, November 2020 https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/October-Jobs-Day.pdf
2 Berry, et al. CDC. Becker’s, Harvard
3 Bartick, M., Schwarz, E., Green, B., Jegier, B., Reinhold, A., Colaizy, T., . . . Stuebe, A. (2016, September 19). Suboptimal breastfeeding in the United States: Maternal and pediatric health outcomes and costs. Retrieved February 16, 2021, from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/mcn.12366
4 Results: Breastfeeding Rates. (2020, December 10). Retrieved February 23, 2021, from https://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/data/nis_data/results.html
*Voted most trusted breast pump brand by United States and Canadian shoppers based on the 2020 BrandSpark® American and Canadian Trust Studies Medela wordmark and logo are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. New Moms' Healthy Returns is a trademark of Medela.
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