IBM Offers Breast Milk Shipping Service to Breastfeeding Mom Employees

Photo Source: hugovk/flickr

The world is looking brighter bit by bit for working mothers. 

Breastfeeding moms know how difficult it is to pump milk. Every single drop counts. So when moms are away for business travel and can’t bring the expressed milk home, dumping it into the trash is the only choice they have.

In an effort to appeal to the female workforce and retain its female employees, IBM, a multinational technology and consulting corporation, will be launching a service that will ship a breastfeeding mother’s milk to her baby when she’s away traveling for work.  It’s definitely a novel idea.

"We are going to experiment with this and see how many women are interested,” Barbara Brickmeier, vice president of benefits at IBM told Fortune. “As long as it appeals to a segment of our population and they feel that they can better balance their work and home, we will continue it.”

The service is set to be available to breastfeeding mothers September this year. The milk will be shipped in a temperature-controlled package to ensure freshness.

We’ve seen a handful of companies who have stepped up their game to provide parental benefits for their employees this year; Vodafone, Virgin and Nestlé to name a few.

Meanwhile in the Philippines, many mothers still struggle to express breast milk when at work. Few might only know but the law actually requires companies to provide its women employees with lactation stations in the workplace, as stated in Republic Act 10028 or the “Expanded Breastfeeding Promotion Act.”


Sources:
July 13, 2015. "IBM to Offer Breast Milk Delivery Service for Staffers". newsweek.com
July 13, 2015. "No more pump and dump: IBM plans to ship employees’ breast milk home". fortune.com
Sept. 2, 2014. "INFOGRAPHIC: How breastfeeding at work should be". rappler.com