How the Challenges of Pumping at Work Led Me To Create Change

To celebrate Workplace Lactation Week, we honor the founder of Mommy Scrubs, thecreator of scrubs designed specifically for working moms to make pumping at work easier.

7 Reasons Why We Celebrate Black Breastfeeding Week Reading How the Challenges of Pumping at Work Led Me To Create Change 3 minutes

By Partnerships for Mila's KeeperSep 1, 20260 comments

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By Cherie Turner, MOT, OTR/L

I'm an occupational therapist. My days are built around back to back sessions, documentation, and work that needs me fully present. I never thought about what it actually takes to pump at work until it was time for me to return after maternity leave. That is when I noticed the lack of postpartum support built into our uniforms. Rarely are things built with motherhood in mind, so scrubs were no different.

I remember standing there with my pump bag, thinking, what do I do now? It was exhausting, inconvenient, and time consuming. There were days I did not know which to do first, redress, or store my pumped milk, or clean the parts, all while trying to get back to work.

Nobody talks about the parts that come with it too. Constantly exposing your postpartum body, or your body in general, is not something moms want to do multiple times a shift. Messing up my hair every time I had to change. Deodorant stains on my uniform from getting dressed and undressed over and over. Small things, but they added up, and they were exhausting in a way that is hard to explain unless you have lived it.

And I quickly realized I was not alone. I directly witnessed coworkers going through the exact same thing, shift after shift.

There is a quote I have always come back to, a problem defined is a problem half solved. Once I named what the actual problem was, it stopped feeling like something I just had to push through and started feeling like something I could fix.

That is when my OT brain and my mommy brain collided, and I had the vision for Mommy Scrubs™. I designed a patented access panel directly into the scrub top, so moms can pump without changing out of what they are already wearing. No extra steps, no lost minutes, no choosing between showing up for your work and showing up for your baby.

Mommy Scrubs™ exists so the next mom returning from leave does not have to figure this out alone. As healthcare workers, we spend our days caring for everyone else. We wanted to take care of this problem for you.