Hellobee

While most of my posts involving travel will be about traveling with children, this post is actually about traveling without kids. Just as having kids didn’t deter us from traveling with children, I wasn’t completely ready to let my business travel go (although I did find a new job where I travel significantly less than my previous 45% travel schedule). Usually the only issue with travel is that I miss the kids, and feel a little guilty about leaving Mr. Dolphin without help. However, additional challenges can be created when you need to pump while traveling on business.

After I had Panda, I had to travel from DC to Vancouver on a work trip for a week when he was a little less than three-months-old. I knew I was getting toward the end of our breastfeeding journey (I stopped at eight weeks with Lion, so the fact that I’d gotten to twelve weeks was a huge victory for me), but wanted to pump as much as possible while I still could. Here is what I did and what I learned about pumping while traveling.

Equipment and Transport

Obviously, bringing your pump with you is essential! While I would have loved to rent a hospital grade pump since they are more effective, when it came time to travel, I was happy to have my small portable Medela Pump-In-Style. I didn’t have the Medela bag for transport, but just put it into my messenger bag carry-on. My carry-on also held one set of pumping equipment (flanges, tubing, etc.) and two 5 oz Medela bottles. I also brought these handy Medela Quick Clean Wipes since I wasn’t sure where or how well I was going to be able to wash the parts. These wipes were great for cleaning the equipment while in the airport, but were also invaluable when I needed to do a quick clean while pumping at the conference during a short 15-minute break. I didn’t pump on the airplane, but if I had wanted to, I would have purchased a battery pack for the breastpump to avoid any issues in finding an outlet. Alternatively, I also considered a manual pump, but the one experience I had with a manual pump (for a day before I got Medela Pump-In-Style through my insurance) was horrible. I also purchased this Medela cooler bag which comes with four bottles and an ice block to transport the breastmilk back home.

I calculated the amount of breastmilk I thought I would collect over the week and brought the corresponding number of bottles in my checked baggage. While we use the Medela freezer bags at home, I only wanted to use bottles to transport the breastmilk back. I was afraid that freezer bags might break or leak as they slowly thawed or got jostled around in transport. I also checked in a second set of pumping accessories just in case anything happened to the first set; it was also nice in case I didn’t get to do a thorough job cleaning the equipment after one pump because I had to run back down to the conference.

While I actually managed to fit the above items into my carry on, you don’t need to worry about reserving room in your carry on luggage for your pumping equipment. Breast pumps and breastmilk are treated like medical equipment/medicines and are permitted in addition to the regular carry on allowance.

Pumping in an Airport

I was lucky that the airports I was traveling to, from or through were all major airports that had some area where I could pump if I wanted to. I did research into each airport before I left for my trip: Dulles and National in Washington, DC, Denver, Vancouver and Toronto. I didn’t have a firm plan as to when or which airports I would pump in, but figured I would play it by ear. At a minimum each airport had a family restroom with a plug that could be used for pumping. While that is not a preferred solution, it is an option that existed in all the airports and terminals I checked. Other airports were better equipped with an actual lactation room for nursing or pumping. Some airports, like National, require you to call a number to have the room opened for you. Ones that did have a lactation room often had it only in a single terminal, so it was helpful to know ahead of time what terminal I would be flying into or out of and which terminal the lactation room was located. Basically, do your research. Unfortunately, this information is not always readily available on the airport’s website. I often found that Google searches worked better and I could find a blog post or a response in a forum stating whether an airport had a lactation room.

Scheduling Pumping Breaks at a Conference

The toughest part of pumping for me while traveling was being able to fit it into my conference schedule. While in DC, I would usually breastfeed in the morning before work, pump three times while at work, then breastfeed again after dinner. In DC there was about a 3 to 3.5 hour break in between each breastfeeding/pumping session. Unfortunately, the conference schedule, which included long days and dinners/receptions, didn’t really accommodate this schedule so there were several days where I only got to pump four times in the day, rather than five.

Luckily, I was staying at the conference venue which made it easy to pop up to my room to pump whenever there was a lunch break or well-timed coffee break. In my previous job, I generally would not have been permitted to stay at the meeting/conference venue because of the higher costs associated with these types of hotels, but if you can swing it, the proximity is definitely worth it.

I will add that dropping just one pump a day really made my supply plummet and I only continued to pump/breastfeed for another two or three weeks, but that may be because I never had a very good supply to begin with. For Lion, we ended up having to supplement beginning on day 3 of his life because he was starving; with Panda we started supplementing when we were in the hospital.

Storage of Pumped Breastmilk

I called my hotel ahead of time and asked if I could have a refrigerator in my room. Most hotels do have extra mini-fridges that you can request ahead of time. The hotel I was staying in actually had refrigerators in all of the rooms as a standard feature. However, they did not have freezers. Because I would be traveling across three time zones with a layover, I wanted the milk to be frozen to ensure that it wouldn’t spoil on the way back. After seeing a tip on another blog (unfortunately, I don’t remember which one so I can’t give it credit!), I asked the hotel concierge whether I could use the hotel’s freezer to store my breastmilk. What I did was pump and store the milk in my refrigerator until I had a couple of bottles, then I would page room service to retrieve it. I put the bottles in a cooler bag, along with the ice block, and then put the entire contents of the bag into a plastic bag to avoid contamination just in case they leaked. I also put my business card in the freezer bag and a slip of paper with my name and room number for easy identification.

Room service at my hotel was incredibly accommodating and they were more than happy to pick up my bag, store it, and return it whenever I asked for it. One tip I do have is to make sure to ask where the bag is being stored. My hotel had more than one kitchen and room service wasn’t always sure which freezer it was being stored in. Luckily, the first room service person to pick up the bag from me told me where it would be when I wanted to retrieve it, so I was able to easily identify it for the future (and knew to ask the question of others).

Transporting Breastmilk Back Home

I knew that I would be spending at least twelve hours in transit, including the time in the Vancouver airport, flight times and layover times, plus the ride back from the airport to my home. As a result, I needed to find a way to be able to transport the breastmilk back home safely. Initially, I thought I would just pick up a small hard side cooler and ask one of the restaurants at the airport for ice. After some quick Amazon searching, though, I found a Medela cooler bag that had really good reviews. I liked the idea of carrying something smaller that I could use again later as a lunch bag for Panda, which we do currently. I can attest that, with the frozen block, all of my bottles arrived home safely and still mostly frozen. Of course, if you already have a small hard-sided cooler at home, I read many success stories of individuals bringing breastmilk in these coolers and getting ice from concessions at the airport.

I looked up TSA rules before I left and printed out a copy just in case I had any issues with overzealous TSA agents. You are permitted to transport breastmilk exempt from the 3 ounce rule even without your child with you. Just declare it to the TSA screeners and separate it out from your other belongings. If the milk is fully frozen, they may not run an additional test on it, but be prepared for them to wipe down the outside of the bottle for additional screening (the additional screening was run on my bottles in Vancouver, but not in Toronto). Ice packs and gel packs to keep the breastmilk cold are also permitted and are exempt from the TSA liquid exclusions. I had all of it in one container, so it was easy for TSA to examine everything at once.

Because I was traveling to Canada, I looked up the Canadian equivalent of the TSA to ensure that their rules about breastmillk were the same (they were) because I didn’t want to go through the effort of pumping and transporting if it was all going to be dumped. If you are traveling out of the country, make sure to see what the guidelines are for all places of transit.

In my research, I also read about shipping options where you can pack your breastmilk with dry ice and express ship it. This seemed like too much trouble and too expensive for me considering that I pump so little.

Leaving the kiddos behind is always tough, but I love that we live in an era of smartphones with cameras and FaceTime so I don’t miss out on too many precious moments like this one. 

Overall, pumping while traveling was less difficult than I thought it would be. I was lucky in that the airports I was flying into and through had nursing rooms. Staying in the same hotel as the conference venue saved me a lot of time and made pumping during breaks possible. Because I never produced very much, it was a manageable amount to carry back. While I never really loved pumping, I’m glad I got to breastfeed and produce a little more breastmilk for Panda, even if our journey only lasted another two weeks after my return.