Traveling with an infant can be stressful enough without having to worry about security regulations and the possibility that necessary baby gear like breast pumps will get broken in the process.
Unfortunately, it’s an all-too-familiar story for many parents who fly. Last month one woman alleged that the Transportation Security Administration agent who handled her security check at Portland International Airport disassembled her pump and left it inoperable.
The TSA says they’ve been unable to reach this woman to substantiate her claim, but her story is not unique. Breast-feeding mothers frequently claim that agents made them pour out already-pumped milk, refuse to comply with TSA policy by insisting breast milk be screened via x-ray, handle breast pumping equipment in a way that threatens its integrity, or even threaten to dispose of breast pumping equipment.
Officially, the TSA exempts breast milk from the 3-1-1 liquid policy, allowing parents to carry more than 3.4 ounce-containers that fit in a single gallon-size bag through security, but not all agents seem to be aware of the exemption. While the cases certainly are concerning, they do not suggest that the TSA as a whole has inadequate policies for dealing with breast milk and pumps.
As Jessica Shortall, author of Work. Pump. Repeat: The New Mom’s Survival Guide to Breastfeeding and Going Back to Work said, “The common thread seems to be that the experience is largely dependent on the particular agent one is interacting with,” suggesting that agents could benefit from training specifically dedicated to handling breast feeding parents.
According to a TSA spokesman in Portland, agents are not trained in handling breast pumps, but rather “It’s how do we handle people’s property either in their presence of our presence. We want to make sure we give it back to them the way they give it to us.”
Opening bottles or exposing pumps to screening equipment could make it unsafe for babies, according to Shortall. “This is food for a newborn, so opening and handling by a stranger, including waving something over the opening of the bottle or bag, means that many new mothers then consider the milk unsafe to feed to the baby and therefore discard it.” And while there is no evidence to suggest the radiation from an x-ray machine makes breast milk unsafe, many parents would “rather be safe than sorry.”
The solution is somewhere in the middle. As the TSA spokesman said, “We want to make sure that none of those items is a threat to civil aviation, we want to make sure that they’re operational. There’s really no reason for us to impact the operability of those machines or that technology.”
It’s imperative that TSA agents understand that breast pumps are medical equipment and that contaminating or damaging the equipment poses medical risks to both milk-producing parents and to infants.
Kirstin can be reached at [email protected].
