Milk Stork Blog

8/11/20

Family Health, Pumping & Feeding

How to move during COVID-19 — and to do it safely!

With COVID, work from home (WFH) and distance learning, American families are picking up and moving out. Whether it is to reduce their living costs or improve their quality of life, 26% of Americans are considering moving due to COVID. Moving during these unprecedented times does not come without its challenges – especially when relocating your family, but it doesn’t have to be a scary experience. All it takes is some additional planning, patience and plenty of hand sanitizer! Here…

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7/6/20

Family Health

How to Find & Manage Child Care in a Pandemic

Finding affordable, quality child care has always been hard – it’s exponentially more difficult during a pandemic. We caught up with Lynn Perkins, the CEO and co-founder of UrbanSitter to get her insights, best practices and tips for navigating this challenging new child care landscape. Today, working families are faced with limited daycare options, additional costs and a dizzying array of micro-schools and learning pods that have sprouted up overnight. With more than a million users in 50 cities, UrbanSitter…

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6/17/20

Family Health, Pumping & Feeding, Employers

Take the Damn Leave

Leading by Example Means Taking Paternity Leave With Father’s Day just around the corner, we want to bring attention to the issue of paid family leave in the U.S. and, specifically, paternity leave. Who better to talk about this important issue than our friend, Andrew Doan, a dad of three and one of the founders of Bokee, the one-handed bottle prep accessory. I wanted to take a minute to talk about the issue of paid family leave in the US…

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3/31/20

Family Health

Co-Regulating with Children During COVID-19

Did you know that your children co-regulate with you? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ When your children are feeling dysregulated (or out of sorts) for one reason or another, they are looking to you to help bring them back to calm. In times of uncertainty like these, as parents, we must be the calm presence our kiddos need to be able to downregulate. Downregulate – “The process of reducing or suppressing a response to a stimulus” (Merriam-Webster) Basically, if you’re not calm, your babies…

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3/4/20

Family Health, Pumping & Feeding, Workplace Support, Employers

4 Out of 5 Working Moms Say Their Employers Could Better Support Breastfeeding Parents

McHenry, IL March 04, 2020— A survey of more than 2,000 working moms found that a majority of women feel they lack the support they need to continue breast milk feeding when they return to work after baby. The survey, conducted in January 2020 by Medela, Mamava, and Milk Stork – the partners behind New Moms’ Healthy Returns— sought to better understand the challenges breastfeeding mothers face when returning to work, as well as to identify opportunities for employers to…

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2/11/20

Family Health, Pumping & Feeding

Vitamin D: Making Sure You, and Baby, Are Getting Enough

Almost half of women in the US are deficient in Vitamin D, which plays an important role in bone, nerve, respiratory and immune health. This article will help you and your breastfed baby achieve optimal levels of the Sunshine Vitamin during the winter. Vitamin D is made by the body when exposed to sunlight for 5-30 minutes a day, a few times a week. Many women do not achieve this, especially during the winter when sunlight hours are limited and…

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7/9/19

Travel Tips, Family Health, Pumping & Feeding

Your Ultimate Guide to Traveling While Breastfeeding

Traveling while you’re still breastfeeding can seem off-putting. In fact, it sounds quite overwhelming. Luckily, thankfully, there are mothers out there who know how to play the game. In this case, our mom is Sara Novak, and she shares her ultimate guide to traveling while breastfeeding. The name of the game: planning ahead. First, she breaks down the most important question: What should bring? When traveling, the following are not luxuries, they are necessary to ensure pumping success. 1) A…

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6/10/19

Family Health, Current News, Employers

Moms’ Equal Pay Day, June 10th, 2019

Today is Moms’ Equal Pay Day. This day marks how far into 2019 moms must work to catch up to make what dads earned in 2018. Coined the “motherhood penalty” by sociologists, this wage gap refers to the systematic disadvantages working mothers face – working moms are less likely to be hired, less likely to be perceived as competent at their jobs, and less likely to receive equal pay and benefits, as compared to working dads and even fellow women…

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5/7/19

Family Health, Workplace Support

Rebecca Dunn-Levert

Ihave been traveling for work many times per year for many years. When I gave birth I knew that I wanted to exclusively breastfeed and it would be a challenge. When it was determined that my son had a milk allergy, I decided that there was no way I was turning back. He was about six weeks old so I was in pumping overdrive trying to pump as much milk reserves as possible. When I took my first trip I…

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