Breastfeeding and Jury Duty Can Be a Dirty Combination in Florida

• Ditto to everything Elita said!

• Your comment was that she should pump at home or pump at lunch. If she is gone from her home for 8 hours a day at jury duty, that would leave her able to only pump during whatever lunch break she got at jury duty. That is not enough. And on her lunch break, if no other accommodations could be made, you said she could find a "more suitable public restroom." There is NO public restroom that is suitable for preparing your baby's food. If you wouldn't make and eat a sandwich in there, why would I pump my milk in there? The point is, the courthouse should be prepared for this type of thing if they are not going to list it as an exemption. There should be a dedicated space for lactating women where they can pump, if you are going to expect them to show up for jury duty.

• Fire the bathroom custodian & his or her supervisor.

• If the courthouse can provide a clean place for smokers to indulge in an unhealthy addiction, the courthouse can provide a clean private place for a woman to pump breastmilk

• If a Judge is not going to excuse breastfeeding women from jury duty than the court should provide a lactation room. Otherwise, breastfeeding women are going to have to pump and dump bad for babies or go without pumping bad (and painful) for Mom. Women should not have to pump in a restroom.

• I am not assuming a bathroom is a suitable place to pump. If the breastfeeding mom needs a special accomodation because she cannot get excused from jury duty and she does not want to use a dirty public courthouse bathroom, she should call ahead for the special accomodation. I did not say she should be restrcited to pumping once per day, Elita, nor did I say she should be restricted to pumping in a bathroom. What did I type? I quoted the Broward County Courthouse website for those needing special accomodations. If she expects to pump a few times a day, she should expect to make a phone call ahead of time.

• You are still assuming a bathroom is a suitable place to pump. It's not. Do you eat in public restrooms? If the court system is not willing to grant exemptions for nursing mothers across the board, like other states, then they damn well better be prepared when a woman walks in needing a place to express milk. And ok you're a woman, it's still obvious you know very little about how breastfeeding works. Expecting a woman to pump once per day, for God only knows how long, illustrates that clearly. Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint! ----- Reply message -----

• Never assume. I am female, NOT male. The breastfeeding mom could leave the courthouse during lunch break to find a more suitable restroom, or be excused from jury duty in the first place for this very reason. If she could not be excused from jury duty, and needs "a special accommodation to participate in a judicial proceeding at a Broward County Courthouse, should contact the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Coordinator no later than two business days before the proceeding." This includes jury duty. If she expects to pump 3x per day, then she should expect to make a phone call before jury duty for this special accomodation herself, and not show up and expect unknowing courthouse clerks to accomodate her.

• I could not have said it better myself. Great job, Elita. Smitty consider yourself cyber-punched. But we will forgive you for your ignorance & lack of sympathy.

• So Smitty, I'm assuming you are a man who has never been around a breastfeeding woman because what you are saying makes no sense. Breasts continually fill up with milk all day. Pumping is not a once-per-day thing. If she were told to report to jury duty at 7 am and was not released until 5 pm, she would need to pump at least three times during that period in order to keep up her milk supply and not deal with a medical issue like engorgement, which could lead to plugged milk ducts and mastitis, a breast infection that often requires antibiotics. So yes, she DOES need a more appropriate place to pump than the bathroom, and no, you cannot expect a breastfeeding mother to serve on jury duty without needing to pump throughout the day. If the courthouse can't make such a simple accommodation, then they need to excuse nursing mothers. I received a summons when my son was 3 months old, I was still on maternity leave and breastfeeding and I was thankfully dismissed. There is no way I would have pumped in a filthy bathroom.

• I agree. I've worked at the courthouse for a long time and this issue has come up before. This is the first complaint I hear.

• This is not a reason to be excused from jury duty. If she wanted to pump, she could have pumped at home. She should have expected that restroom, like all public restrooms, to be dirty. Sounds like she wants special accomodations for the "normal condition" of lactating mother.

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