Babies in the Workplace

   Expecting a mother to leave her child for eight to ten hours a day during this extremely sensitive period--when her baby is still waking up multiple times a night, may be exclusively breastfed, and can barely even hold up his head on his own--is a huge burden to place on a human being. Cindy Prifti of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, returned to work when her son was three months old, but, as she explains:

   About two weeks before I had to leave him,
   I started crying every day in anticipation of
   the "big day." I was horribly depressed when
   I was at work, I called [the daycare provider]
   every 30 minutes, and I cried all day long.

   This scenario is not unusual, especially for first-time mothers, when they must leave their babies in those early months.

   Dana Croy of Magical Journey worked in retail for years before she had her own child, and she commented that:

   One of the things that struck me when
   working with women that had babies was
   how unhappy they were when they came
   back to work. I saw several instances
   where women would come back to work
   and be miserable and cry every day for
   weeks. They didn't understand that it was
   because of separation from their baby--the
   hormonal part of it. We have hormones to
   encourage us to take care of babies.
   Separation messes with that.

   Dana believes that postpartum depression is often connected to mothers being separated from their babies. She said, "It's against nature. You may be functioning at work, but your mind's not there."

   Carolyn Gable, the owner of New Age Transportation, took her twins to the office with her when they were babies.