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Supporting Breastfeeding Mothers in the Workplace with MumPod

• Toby Mildon • Episode 143

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“How can businesses better support breastfeeding parents returning to work? Toby Mildon speaks with Ros McFadden, founder of MumPod and International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), about the innovative steps organisations can take to foster inclusivity for new parents.”

Episode Overview
In this episode of The Inclusive Growth Podcast, Toby Mildon interviews Ros McFadden, founder of MumPod, to discuss:

  • The creation of MumPod, a private, hygienic pod designed for breastfeeding parents in the workplace
  • Ros’s journey from midwife to entrepreneur and how her background in design, healthcare, and personal experience inspired MumPod
  • The barriers breastfeeding parents face in typical workplace environments
  • Why supporting breastfeeding parents is essential for inclusivity and staff retention
  • How organisations like the NHS and Apple are already implementing MumPods

Key Takeaways

  • Unique Challenges for New Parents: Many parents lack dedicated spaces for breastfeeding or pumping at work, forcing them into inappropriate settings like toilets or cars.
  • Innovative Solution: The MumPod is a purpose-built, cocoon-like pod providing a comfortable, hygienic, and private space designed specifically for breastfeeding.
  • Supporting Inclusivity: Inclusive work environments must accommodate breastfeeding needs as part of a comprehensive diversity strategy.
  • Positive Examples: Organisations like Apple and NHS hospitals have already integrated MumPods, showing leadership in supporting returning parents.

Guest Bio
Ros McFadden is the founder of MumPod and a Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), dedicated to creating practical solutions for breastfeeding parents. With a background in midwifery, design, and healthcare innovation, she’s committed to advocating for inclusivity in workplaces across the UK and beyond.

Timestamps

  • 0:00 – Introduction to the episode
  • 3:10 – Ros’s journey from design to healthcare to MumPod
  • 10:45 – Challenges faced by breastfeeding parents in workplaces
  • 20:00 – Description of the MumPod’s design and benefits
  • 30:15 – Success stories from organisations like Apple and the NHS
  • 40:50 – Ros’s vision for MumPod and workplace inclusivity

Call to Action
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review to support The Inclusive Growth Podcast!

Links & Resources

Contact Info

If you're enjoying this episode and looking to boost equity, inclusion, and diversity in your organisation, my team and I are here to help. Our team specialises in crafting data-driven strategies, developing inclusive leaders, designing fair recruitment processes, and enhancing disability confidence. With a blend of professional expertise and lived experience, we're ready to support you on your journey. Reach out to us through our website. 

If you want to build a more inclusive workplace that you can be proud of please visit our website to learn more.

Announcer: Welcome to the Inclusive Growth Show with Toby Mildon. Future-proofing your business by creating a diverse workplace.

Toby Mildon: Hey there, thank you ever so much for tuning into this episode of the Inclusive Growth Show. I'm Toby Mildon and today I'm really excited 'cause I'm joined by an amazing guest. We're joined by Ros McFadden and she's the founder of MumPod and also an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant or IBCLC for short. Ros has had such an incredible journey blending her background as a registered midwife with her entrepreneurial spirit to create something truly innovative, a private hygienic breastfeeding pod that helps mums continue breastfeeding even when they're back at work. We're gonna chat about how Ros came up with the idea for MumPod, the challenges that she faced along the way, and why supporting breastfeeding mothers in the workplace is such a crucial part of building truly inclusive environments. Plus, we'll also get to hear about how MumPod is already making an impact from NHS settings to big names like Apple. So Ros, it's fantastic to have you here and welcome to the show.

Ros McFadden: Thanks, Toby. Thanks for having me along and thanks for the interest in what I'm doing in your space of equality and inclusion.

Toby Mildon: You're really welcome. It's gonna be really interesting to learn more about what you do. Can we just dive into a bit more of an introduction about yourself? So could you just tell us about your role as the founder of MumPod and also what the IBCLC is all about? 

Ros McFadden: Absolutely. So yeah, I have sort of two, I have two hats in business and one is the design hat. So designing innovation to support breastfeeding parents but supporting the sort of the everyday, the longevity of breastfeeding. So when you're going back to work, when you're going on a Hindu, when you're out and about or whatever. And then there's the health professional hat, which so an IBCLC basically is an expert in the field of infant feeding. So ultimately promoting and supporting breastfeeding, but supporting parents to feed their babies in the most health beneficial way that they wish to do. So that's sort of the two heads I think that gives you a bit of an idea of the diversity of how I got to where I am now. So should I give you a little bit of a background into sort of why I'm doing these two things? 

Toby Mildon: Yeah, 'cause it'd be really interesting 'cause you've got a really interesting background covering design, entrepreneurship, working in healthcare. And it's really interesting how all of these have intersected and how that has led you to creating MumPod.

Ros McFadden: Absolutely. Well, I always say we're the culmination of all our parts, aren't we? And I've always been a creative. I originally studied fashion at London College of Fashion. And then I worked through corporate businesses, still sort of on the design side of things. And through those positions, I had three children. One of which, my first child, I was commuting to London from Milton Keynes and I was very pregnant, always had a huge bump. And was getting my bump hit when I was waiting for the tube and I wasn't getting seats offered. And I was getting this sort of impression of how invisible one can be as a pregnant woman in the workplace and commuting and so on. So cut a long story short, giving you a bit of an example of what it's like to be working when you're breastfeeding. I actually left that corporate job and got a little small Sunday job in Laura Ashley. I think she must have been about eight weeks old.

Ros McFadden: It was a Sunday. My husband brought her to meet me at the end of work. And the minute I saw her in her buggy outside the window, the inevitable happened and I started leaking milk. And these two had a very soggy dress. But yeah, that's sort of an image. But the reason I wanted to bring that image to you is that should never have happened 'cause somebody should have said to me, a new mother who's just started this new job, are you breastfeeding? Is there anything we can do with you? Now that was 1995. Sadly, that is still happening. So I see it from both views. I talk to people in the workplace. I talk to employers. But also as a lactation consultant, I see hundreds and hundreds of families and this is still happening. So I went through corporate world. I lost my job when I was pregnant with my fourth baby. I got sent through a compromise agreement. So I'm sure you've heard in the news about NDAs where gagging orders, basically, women are losing their jobs when they're pregnant because they're seen as a burden. And now I was sadly a victim of that.

Ros McFadden: So I retrained to be a midwife as you do because I wanted to support parents like myself. And yeah, so I went, did a midwifery degree and then specialized in infant feeding. But sadly, it was a struggle. And I was seeing actually even in the NHS, a large organization, there still was the way people were treated were not great. I sadly had breast cancer. I lost both my parents while I was there and wasn't treated very well. But always wanted to come up with an idea of, but what could I do to change things? What can I do? You know, I ran a breastfeeding group. I got promoted. I wasn't allowed to run my breastfeeding group. So what did I do? I developed an app. To give the information that I normally give to people 'cause I couldn't do that, but I was being sort of a bit suppressed and I had all these entrepreneurial ideas and these insights and I'd had this sort of near, near death experience makes you change, change your attitude to things. I saw that as I need to make a difference in a different way. And I could see that there was this big gap of focus on how women just get on with life while they're breastfeeding.

Ros McFadden: Yes, we have to go back to work. We need to earn money, and generally the point at which we have family is the point at which careers have been invested in. They're just starting to take off. So that's where I came up with the MumPod. That was the solution.

Toby Mildon: It's amazing how you've had all these different experiences. So you've worked in design and fashion, the corporate world, then you've retrained to become a midwife. You've obviously got an entrepreneurial, innovative spirit as well. And you've had your own sort of personal challenges and setbacks as well. And you've used that to create the MumPod.

Ros McFadden: Yeah.

Toby Mildon: Obviously the person listening to us right now may not have come across MumPod before. And also this is a podcast, so we can't show them either because it's audio. So could you just describe to them exactly what a MumPod looks like to somebody who hasn't seen it before? 

Ros McFadden: Absolutely. So I want you to picture, if you think about it, it's like a little room within a room. So it's got four walls, it's got a door, it's got a ceiling, but it's small. So it's a pod. So thinking about the smallness, the comfort of it. So the idea of it is you open the door, you sit on this really comfortable seat, you shut the door and the outside world is dampened and you are just you in a comfortable, quiet space. Now, the reason I'm sort of doing this in this soft voice and sort of really trying to evoke that is when you're breastfeeding or when you need to pump milk, pumping milk is not the most romantic thing in the world. It's not...

Ros McFadden: It really is quite like, you feel a bit like a cow, but to physically let down milk, to invoke the hormones you need, you need to be relaxed. You need to be happy and you need to not be stressed. So that's what the pod is. So you come in, you've got lights in the ceiling, which you can dim down. The seats are, yes, they're hygienic. You can wipe them down, but they're comfortable. The wall behind you, I'm using my hands. Honestly, Toby, it's ridiculous, isn't it? The wall behind the chair is dark and sort of cocooning.

Ros McFadden: There's positive bright colors as well. There are plug sockets so you can plug your pump in. There's a nice clean work surface so you can pop your pump on there. We quite often, clients will have a milk fridge. So if it's for staff, there's a locker milk fridge so you can pump your milk, store it away from everyone else's packed lunch, which is quite a nice thing to do. But the idea is you are cocooned in your own pod. It's your own little unit and it's not shared with someone that's gonna be praying or someone that's gonna need a time out or someone that needs a medical room. 'cause actually, traditionally, the inequalities box gets ticked like, okay, well, we need all these things. So we'll build a pod and everybody will use that pod. We all need these. We are all valid in our needs of whatever we need. So if you're neurodiverse, if you need to pray, if you cut your finger, or whatever it is. So it's purpose built for a lactating person.

Toby Mildon: I like that 'cause that's something I'm guilty of actually. 'cause when I worked in the city, I was involved in helping think about the redesign of the head office that we were building. And we had a multi-purpose well-being room. And it was for people that maybe had a medical need, like they needed to inject incident, or they just needed time out. I mean, it was a nice room. It was designed to be somewhere that you could go and it was calming and relaxing. But it was multi-purpose actually. And now that you've said that, I can see why that would be an issue. Especially as you're describing the MumPod, I'm thinking it just sounded lovely and cocoon-like and exactly what you need if you are expressing milk.

Ros McFadden: Yeah, exactly that. And I think this isn't sort of saying, oh, that's a terrible thing you've thought about that. That's such a massive step, isn't it, Toby, that you were asked to do that and you came up with something. But now it's looking at actually, yeah, it's the individual need and not putting it, it's great that it was a nice place. It's great that everyone's been thought of. And, not everyone has the space for everything. But if we're really, truly inclusive, we have to walk in the shoes of each of those people.

Toby Mildon: Yeah, absolutely. So what are some of the barriers that mothers face when their workspaces are not suitable for them for breastfeeding? 

Ros McFadden: Well, I'm gonna be quite graphic about this. There's two things. If you are, continuing, more often than not, a person who's breastfeeding would have to, to maintain their supply. 'cause I think maybe we talk about why? Why does this need to be a thing? 'cause I quite often get, well, don't you just do it in the morning at night by the time you come back to work? And it's like, it's actually not your business to ask that question. And actually everyone's way of breastfeeding is very different. So quite often there isn't somewhere. So they would have to go somewhere with a lockable door. Guess where that is? That's the toilet.

Toby Mildon: It sounds like it's the toilet, yeah.

Ros McFadden: And more often than not, oh, use a disabled toilet 'cause it's big enough. Well, that's not fair, is it? If you needed a wee, you don't want to have someone pumping their breast milk in your toilet. Do you know what I mean? And also, who wants their lunch prepared in the toilet? And also, who wants to eat their lunch in the toilet? So that's not appropriate. Or they're sitting out in the car park and they're like trying to make sure no one can see. And it's just like, that's not conducive. But the sad statistic is that one in eight moms actually think they have to give up before they go back to work. So they're making life and medical health choices, negative choices, sadly, about their future and their baby's future health, because they think they can't say anything because nothing's provided. And I'm trying to flip it to get the conversation to say, we need to strategize and go, look, you're going on maternity leave. So it's really going right back to, you're going on maternity leave. When you come back, this is what we will do for you if you need it. Do you know what I mean? 

Toby Mildon: Yeah. You're really opening my eyes to this, actually. And well, I'm starting to think is this needs to be regulated. I think there has to be in law that if you, for every X number of people that you're employing, you should have X number of pods. So if you're a company of, I don't know, 10 people, you might have one pod. If you're a company of 10,000 people, you might have, I don't know, 1,000. I don't know. I was never any good at maths. But I'm thinking, this is the kind of thing that I think has to be regulated, surely. Employers, there are some really forward-thinking employers, because we'll come on to talk about them in a minute. But for every forward-thinking employer, I just think there's loads of employers out there who are just going to go, I just can't be asked to do this, or I just can't go to the expense of doing this.

Ros McFadden: Absolutely. And that's a really good point you make, because it always is, well, is it legal? Am I going to get in trouble for it? What do I have to do legally as an employer? And sadly, in the UK, we're really lacking, and we really fall short on this, because we don't even use the word breastfeeding in the legislation. So the legislation says a pregnant or new parent should have a, so a new woman, birthing parent, should have a rest break.

Toby Mildon: Right.

Ros McFadden: That in itself just shows you the sort of the inequality and the lack of understanding, or wanting to use the word breast. I mean, for crying out loud, it's 2024. It's like, how did we all get here? But no, seriously. So yes, the legislation is lacking. We have to then be clever and go, okay, well, this is about sexual discrimination. Because I am a lactating person, I'm being discriminated against those that aren't. You can bring in the rights of the child. So there's the UN rights for the child to feed. And so you are stopping that child having their usual form of diet. There are things like, and this doesn't get highlighted, if you actually reduce the amount of breastfeeding you're doing, and you, well, just anyway, anyway, but or you are someone's predisposed for mental ill health, the change in hormones are so huge that you could actually suffer really negatively and already going back into a stressful environment. But none of that's in legislation. So, and actually, Toby, thinking about this, I have really, there's APPGs, the All-Party Parliamentary Groups.

Toby Mildon: Yeah.

Ros McFadden: Yeah. But there's one of those for pretty much most inequalities. There was one for infant feeding. Sadly, the amazing Alison Thewlis wasn't revoted in. But we need one of these. And this is gonna be my agenda. So watch this space.

Toby Mildon: I feel like this is your third mission. [laughter] I could see this happening. Are there any countries out there that are doing a better job than us? 

Ros McFadden: Yes. And interestingly, the reason's weird. So we actually, the UK has a pretty good maternity policy, although obviously could do better. And the majority of people take 12 months. Yes, there are elements that is paid. Some companies add to that. In the US, so the United States, although being one of the major, capital leaders, they have 12 week maternity leave. Now, 12 weeks is still such a vulnerable time with a new parent. But because of that, because their whole health system's geared to insurance and giving everything, they are very well aware that women need to express to pump when they go back to work, because they're going back so early. To the point FedEx, any career company are used to shipping milk, a corporate lady sat in an office and a baby's up in another state. But they, our main competitor is American, and they are in every single state, and nearly all the sports companies and all the companies know that when we have somebody comes back to work after maternity leave, we have to provide this.

Toby Mildon: Yeah, yeah.

Ros McFadden: So isn't it interesting the way though? 

Toby Mildon: Yeah, 'cause I used to work for an American company, and I remember I was quite shocked at how bad the maternity leave was for my colleagues who were based out in the States.

Ros McFadden: It's just so sad.

Toby Mildon: Yeah. Let's talk about some of the companies then that are doing good, 'cause obviously you are working with some great organisations, and they're really behind this. Can you tell me about some of the companies that you're working with who are doing good and supporting their parents coming back to work? 

Ros McFadden: Absolutely. A lot of the inquiries and a lot of the tenders we go for will be against American companies because they already have this in place. And now they're over in the UK and they're like, okay. So we're really, really proud that we actually have one of our pods in Apple Retail Store in Switzerland. And this isn't a flagship. Oh, we've got this on our shop floor. No, no. This is out the back. Because they have somebody coming back to work who's just a store worker and they're coming back to work. They need somewhere to pump and so it's back of house and it's there. And I think it's great just bringing that into Europe. And it's so interesting when I go to conferences and we've just done one in Portugal and they're like, "This is amazing, is it... We haven't got these in Portugal." And it's like, yes, because they're just on, anyway, this side of the world, which is why I'm here.

Ros McFadden: But also, you can imagine the most fundamental place to get this is in the NHS. So we're, again, really proud to have them in some hospitals, some NHS hospitals. And the reason that they're there is not just for the people that are used in the hospital, visitors and so on. But for their staff, I think we're all very well aware of the state of the NHS at the moment. And the problem is staff numbers. And that's all very well saying we're going to invest loads of money and recruit new people. But we want staff retention. So there's even an, there's a whole arm of the NHS that works on retention. So they're actually saying, right, actually, yeah, this is really important. And if the health professionals in the NHS are saying, the World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding the benefits of it for two years or longer, you sort of need the strategy and go, right, okay, we need to demonstrate the rhetoric. Does that make sense? 

Toby Mildon: Yeah, absolutely. Where are you hoping your business goes over the next couple of years? 

Ros McFadden: We've grown quite quickly, but we need to scale. And I can see us being the supplier and the leader on this size. So UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, India, Asia. So we're sort of this side of the world. It's going to be huge. I absolutely know we have the... It's really interesting 'cause this is not about the product as such. It's about the message. And so that's my biggest driver. And if I can say that, I actually just can be a voice. Yes, I have the solution 'cause that's the entrepreneurial brain. It's like, what's the need? I'm going to find you the solution. But it's having that voice and let's get this out there and get, for people to go, "Oh, brilliant. Yes, we're looking for a lactation pod." Not, "Oh, is that a thing? That's amazing. Why has no one ever thought of that before?" I want to change those conversations I'm having at conferences.

Toby Mildon: Well, there's kind of two sides to your business, I guess. You've got the product and the solution, but you also need to raise awareness and evangelise this for people.

Ros McFadden: Yeah.

Toby Mildon: So what does inclusive growth mean for you? 

Ros McFadden: I think it's mutually beneficial. If you're gonna grow in our future world, which has so many challenges, we have to include everybody. So it's looking at, yes, economic growth, but economic growth has to be the vision, has to include everybody. So, what the future of the world is, but also who are those people? Who is going to be a parent? Who is an employee? What are their needs? If you think about why I do what I do, 50% if we just go on gender and obviously that gender can go across a wide variance. But if we go with male, female and 50% of the population is a woman and we're discriminating and stopping them going into the workplace, it's not just that. It's people with disabilities. It's people with mental health challenges. It's people, so growth has to go in line with inclusivity and equality and diversity. Otherwise, we're not being representative.

Toby Mildon: Absolutely. So, Ros, just before we end this episode, if the person listening to us right now would like to learn more about MumPod or perhaps they want to follow your work so that they can start sharing with their friends and colleagues about the importance of what you're doing, how should they do that? 

Ros McFadden: So first of all, if you want to sort of visually see what we're about, follow, go on to our website, www.mum-pod.com. If you want to find out what I'm all about and all the things that, I advocate for and why I do what I do, I'm Rosamund McFadden, award-winning IBCLC, but Rosamund McFadden or Ros McFadden, I'm sure it will come up. And then the company, we have MumPod Company Limited, LinkedIn as well. So on LinkedIn, Rosman McFadden or MumPod Company.

Toby Mildon: Brilliant. Ros, thanks so much for joining me today. It's been really fascinating to catch up with you and learn about all the work that you do and the creation of Mumpods. And I just really hope it takes off and every company in this side of the world starts putting one in their offices.

Ros McFadden: Thanks, Toby. No, thank you so much and thanks for the opportunity. I love to evangelise. I love that word. I'm going to use that again.

Toby Mildon: You're welcome. You're very welcome. And thank you for tuning into this episode of the Inclusive Growth podcast with myself and Ros. As Ros said, if you want to follow her work, please do reach out on LinkedIn. Also go over to her website so that you can see the product. And if you know anyone or any organisations that you think would benefit from MumPod, please do share this episode with them and encourage them to investigate further and contact Ros and her team to buy one and install one in their place of work. So thanks ever so much for tuning in and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode, which will be coming up very soon. Until then, take good care of yourself. Bye-bye.

Announcer: Thank you for listening to the Inclusive Growth Show. For further information and resources from Toby and his team, head on over to our website at mildon.co.uk.