I am a nurse on a very busy med surg floor. Despite this, I’ve adjusted my schedule enough that I am able to mitigate for the breast pumping I need to get done every 3 hours (mostly). To help I often chart, pump, and eat meals simultaneously.
Now there are two places I might pump: the Watson room, which is a private room off of the patient rooms, or progressive care nurses station which is an enclosed room as well. I more often choose the nurses station because it offers the desk space I need to multitask, i can shut the door and face the corner out of anyone’s line of sight, and because it has 3 computers so I can sit at any of those and chart. In either case I am fully covered at all times and most don’t even know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing this for 7 months and no one has had an issue with this.
Fast forward to today and a nurse that’s been gone for over a year has come back to work with us. Just as I was about to sit done and do my morning routine she asked me what I was about to do and when I told her she very matter of factly said “don’t do that here.” Out of respect and because I know some people feel a certain way about breastfeeding and pumping I slunk away to the Watson room but that has not stopped me from feeling some kind of way about it.
I mean, am I in the wrong here? Am I being inappropriate in some way and don’t realize it?
