From mom2momglobal.com
We can’t believe this is still happening. Renowned photographer and Navy spouse Shannon O’Hara is no stranger to managing travel while lactating. But yesterday, Delta Airlines violated their own policy and forced her to gate-check her personal item bag, even after she informed the gate agent at San Diego International Airport that her pump and expressed milk were in the bag. Then, her connecting flight was delayed for hours in Detroit, meaning that Shannon had to wait over 14 hours between pumping her milk and breastfeeding when she was reunited with her baby.
In Shannon’s own words, she was booked on Delta flight 1648 from San Diego International Airport to Detroit, and flight 2044 from Detroit to Reagan National with a 45-minute scheduled layover in Detroit.
Passengers were asked to voluntarily check their bags for free, and not enough passengers checked their bags. I was told by the gate agent responsible for boarding the flight that the flight was full and based on my zone, I would likely end up having to check it because none of the higher priority zones had volunteered. I told the gate agent that I had my breast pump and some pumped milk in the bag they’re asking to check.
He asked if I wanted to take the milk out, but I didn’t have anything to carry it since my carryon was my purse for this trip. I asked if they had smaller totes he could give me to use to carry my pump in and he said no, and didn’t offer for me to carry the pump separately. The flight was boarding, but I ran back to see if I could buy an inexpensive bag in the airport shops. We all know buying anything in the airport inexpensively is a damn joke, so I went and looked to say I looked, but I knew what the deal was. So I just had to grab my wallet and headphones – pretty much anything I could fit in my pockets. I boarded the plane last and left my bag on the jetway. The gate agent ended up being right about the mandatory checking because by the time I boarded in zone 9 with the economy passengers, it was required that everyone boarding with overhead bags check them on the jetway. I’d last pumped at nine am. By the time we took off, it had been three hours since I’d pumped. The flight length was four hours and twenty-five minutes. So, I knew when I landed I’d have to find a way to express my milk. I had a clogged duct and a bad fever a few months ago, and did not want to go back to that. I pumped before leaving for the airport that morning at 9:45am.
According to TSA regulations and Delta’s own policy, breastpumps are allowed on board–because they are medical devices. When a lactating person is unable to express milk for an extended period of time, it puts them at risk for a number of painful and potentially dangerous breast health issues, including clogged ducts and mastitis. And despite the gate agent’s insistence that even personal items like purses had to be checked, Shannon noticed that nearly everyone in her zone on the flight had their purses with them and were able to stow them under the seat in front of her. Her pump bag could have fit easily under the seat in front of her. But wait–things got even worse when she arrived at Detroit.
