"I'm producing but I can't find the time or place to pump it." "Pressure from work is making me produce less milk." "Since I can't pump on a set schedule, my milk ducts have become blocked and even infected." These are the sorts of complaints you hear from working mothers who breastfeed.

"Click!" Night is falling at a microchip design firm in the Neihu Technology Park. A female employee who has just used the restroom flips the light switch off on her way out. Xiao Yu (not her real name) calls out from a toilet stall where she is pumping breast milk. She carefully sets the pump and the bottle aside, straightens her clothes, and rushes out to turn the light back on. She then returns to the stall and continues with her "part-time job as a cow."

This kind of anxious breast pumping in the restroom is an everyday experience for Xiao Yu. With a job that keeps her very busy, she's only able to make time for 30-minute breast pumping sessions at noon and in the evening. As the company has no breastfeeding room, she usually "packs baby's lunch" in the restroom and refrigerates it. Her in-laws then feed it to the baby the next day.

Sometimes when she is too busy or a meeting suddenly comes up and she can't keep her regular schedule of one pumping every four or five hours, she often suffers from blockage, and even lumps painful enough to drive her crazy. At such times all she can do is bear it until the work is finished and worry about the swelling afterwards.

"Maybe because there are so many nerves in the breast, every time I massage those lumps it hurts so much that the tears just stream down. I have to tough it out until I get home, and then I let the baby suckle like crazy. Luckily our baby can suck pretty strongly and was able to suck away a few really bad lumps," she says with a wincing smile.

Anything for the baby

Working mothers like Xiao Yu have the triple pressures of their jobs, their housework, and their childrearing. With so much already on their plates, why do they want the extra headache and insist on breastfeeding?

"It's because my baby likes to drink breast milk more than formula. Since I work, I don't get to spend so much time with her. Other than mother's milk, it seems like there's nothing I can give her, so I'll breastfeed her as much as I can," says Xiao Yu, who's been breastfeeding for eight months now.

There are a lot of mothers who agree with Xiao Yu's thinking. Pan Shuzhen, who also works in the high tech industry, had three kids in succession after getting married and has breastfed for eight years. Since her company has no dedicated breastfeeding room, she's resorted to pumping in the conference room, the warehouse, and the restroom.

Having breastfed for eight years, Pan occasionally brings in sweets for her co-workers and superiors in order to win their sympathy and establish good rapport. She doesn't want them to think she's "running off" on company time and start gossiping about her. Though she does have to endure male colleagues' silly cracks like asking for "milk" for their coffee, she is quick-witted and will answer back, "OK, but you have to call me 'Mama.'" Their jokes backfire, and they are left in an awkward silence.

As for worries that breastfeeding will, over time, change the shape of the breasts, Pan just laughs and says this is the least of her concerns. As a working mother, she's got more than enough to worry about with just work, family, and childrearing. "Anyway, even if mine have enlarged a little," she says. "I just have to wear the right kind of bra to correct it."

Up to the companies

Taiwan's gender equality laws for the workplace now mandate that in addition to maternity leave, women with infants less than one year old are to be given two 30-minute breast milk pumping periods every day. But women work in a wide variety of fields and positions, and not all workplaces are so accommodating. If all of them enjoyed the right conditions, the breastfeeding rate would surely jump higher.

For example, Taiwan Mobile-the recipient of a Taipei City Department of Health award for promoting a healthy workplace-installed a breastfeeding room that has been called "five-star" quality. Complete with not only a refrigerator and sterilizer but also a hospital-grade breast pump that pumps both breasts simultaneously and is therefore much faster, it is free for employee use. The company has even hired nurses to provide relevant information. Thanks to this, the breastfeeding rate among the company's female employees is up to 94%, with the majority continuing until their infants are one year or older.

But in Taiwan, companies like this are still in the minority. In most workplaces moms are still on their own like Xiao Yu and Pan Shuzhen. When the work environment is unsuitable or there is tension with supervisors, they have no choice but to end their breastfeeding earlier than they'd have liked.

Carol, a teller at a bank, says that she wanted to breastfeed until her infant was six months old. But after returning from maternity leave and once again facing all the time-consuming little tasks required of her like taking payments, giving withdrawals, transferring money from account to account, and making loans, she says, "When it got busy there wasn't even time to go to the restroom, let alone pump breast milk!" So before she'd been back even a month, the stress got to her and she began producing less milk. In the end, she naturally gave up.

Breastfeeding Association of Taiwan head Chen Yi-chun, who conducted long-term research at the Hsinchu Science Park, says that most of the high-tech companies there provide quality breastfeeding facilities. But even at those, 30 minutes is not enough time for employees who have to work shifts in the clean room as it takes them 15 minutes just to get their clean-room suits off. With so little time, how could they even make it to the breastfeeding room on the other side of the building?

"Do your best"

"In Taiwan's current working environment, it's not easy for working women to meet their breastfeeding goals," sighs Chen.

Even when workplaces permit breast milk pumping, the pumps on the market are not as strong as a baby's sucking so many working moms can't pump enough, leading to problems like blockages. The milk ducts can also get infected, leading to symptoms like fevers, chills, and discharge. In serious cases, surgery is needed to drain the blockage.

To avoid these problems, Lin Yahui, a maternity nurse at National Taiwan University Hospital, says that working moms should wash their hands and use a sterile wipe to wipe their nipples before pumping milk. Not only will this avoid infection from germs, it will also help prevent blockages of the milk ducts.

If a mother is too busy at work and can't schedule half an hour to pump, she might as well spend ten minutes in the restroom to pump 70-80% of the milk. If she waits and allows the milk to build up for more than six hours, it will be a much more difficult job.

"It's hard for someone who hasn't experienced it to imagine the pain of trying to pump breast milk when the breast is swollen," Lin says. "Many mothers say that the pain of swollen breasts is several times more painful than that of giving birth, which is a 10 on the pain index. Every time I see these working mothers check in with swollen breasts, I always admire them with all my heart!"

Finally, Lin reminds us that there's no way the current environment is going to change overnight, so working mothers shouldn't give themselves too much pressure over breastfeeding. They should just do the best they can, because after all, raising a child to be happy and healthy with motherly love is the most important thing.