A mother can’t take her board exams because of breast feeding concerns:
When she called the board last week to ask for extra break time, she said she was told that the test provides special accommodations only for disabilities covered by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, and breast-feeding was not one of them.Currier agreed that breast-feeding is not a disability. But it is physically demanding : “What am I going to do, express milk all over your computer?” she asked a board official.
In a statement faxed to the Globe, Catherine Farmer, the board’s manager of disability services, wrote that the disabilities act “does not cover temporary conditions, such as pregnancy. . . . Furthermore, lactation, breast-feeding and breast pumping are not disabilities as defined by the ADA.”
Dr. Gwenn comments. (via White Coat Notes)
Related posts:
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- How old is too old to continue breast feeding?
- Sophie Currier wins her appeal
- Tired of zebras on the IM boards?
- Cardiology boards
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{ 6 comments }
Oh well, . . . next customer.
“”What am I going to do, express milk all over your computer?” she asked a board official.”
There is a surefire way to win your argument, be as repulsive as you can.
I wan’t trying to be repulsive at my job some 16 years ago, when my need to pump was poorly accomodated. Yet I did indeed leak through my pads and onto the computer.
This is the reality of a lactating woman. If my kid even crossed my mind my milk would let down. My breasts became huge, stiff and swollen.
My milk supply dried up prematurely, and I leaked though my clothes constantly, and experienced a very distracting level of genuine physical discomfort.
A break to express milk should be granted any lactating woman. It’s not a bottle, folks, and having enough milk for the present use of a baby isn’t the whole of the issue. As a net good to everyone, breast feeding should be accomodated.
What’s the subtext here? Why won’t they accomodate her? Is it fear she will use the breaks to cheat?
“examinees could use their break time outside the testing room for breast pumping, and if they finished sections of the test early, they could gain extra time for break.”
“Currier, 33, said she is receiving some test accommodation. She has serious dyslexia and attention problems — she was featured in a Globe column last year about adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — and is thus given twice the usual time to complete the test: two nine-hour days instead of one.”
She’s already getting an extra day of testing. With that extra time, you’d think she would be able to finish some of the sections early and use that time for breast feeding. How much extra accomadation does she want?
Speaking as someone who has breastfed a baby, I think she’s whining unnecessarily. Yes, it’s not an idea situation, but it’s two days. You feed the baby right before you go in. Then she’s got 45 minutes worth of breaks–presumably two or three breaks.
If there are two breaks then she pumps at 3 hours in and again at 3 hours later and then can feed the baby again when she’s done.
If there breaks are broken into 3 sections then she can pump almost every two hours.
She’s not going to get mastitis. Wear some breast pads. It’s two days. If it were the rest of her life, then yes, I could see doing some accommodating, but it’s two days!
It seems she has developed a habit for special accommodations. Being given extra test time already for adult attention defecit disorder–a dubious reason to get more time than prescribed for the test, she got to Harvard, after all–what else could she get extra time for?
She should suck it up and learn to work without expecting every inconvenience to be accommodated.
I would hate to have to rotate with this student, she seems like a whining no-load. What she can’t win by power of reasonable persuasion she tries to get by public sympathy in the media.
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