When Patricia Orellana was pregnant, it didn’t cross her mind that she would face so many hurdles just to breastfeed — especially as a working mom. 

She quickly faced scheduling obstacles and a lack of suitable spaces for pumping and storing milk after returning to work as a graduate assistant at UNLV. 

Eventually, she felt she had no choice but to quit her job. 

“I didn't expect people to be so cruel,” Orellana said in an interview. “Here's a student mother who just gave birth, and instead of trying to be accommodating to this person who has a newborn infant and is nursing, you're harassing them and bullying them out of their job.”

Though Orellana’s formal complaint about the situation to UNLV went nowhere, lawmakers this session are looking to bolster protections for breastfeeding mothers like her, creating more avenues for complaints of discrimination and recourse.

Assm. Cecelia González (D-Las Vegas), drawing inspiration from her own experience as a first-time mom, said the state needs to be doing more to support families trying to breastfeed. Her bill, AB266, would require state health agencies to carry out a public information campaign on the benefits of lactation and prohibit a place of public accommodation (any business or place where the public is invited) from denying access if a person is breastfeeding.

There’s broad scientific consensus about the health benefits of breastfeeding — breast milk provides more than 400 different proteins and can even produce antibodies to protect babies from sickness.

And then there are emotional benefits.

“It promotes that maternal bonding with your baby during those first few months,” González said. “That's so critical that you're bonding with your baby.”

More support, protections around breastfeeding

When Orellana felt she was being discriminated against, she filed a complaint with the Office of Equal Employment and Title IX. The office sent her a response saying they found no discrimination at play. 

In addition to protection for breastfeeding in public places, González’s AB266 would allow breastfeeding mothers to file a civil lawsuit or complaint with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission. This could lead to an investigation and the implementation of corrective measures. 

González was inspired to sponsor the bill by a classmate of hers who had just given birth. Her classmate talked about wanting to breastfeed but she was under the impression she couldn’t because she was going back to work. 

“There are federal protections from your employer to allow you to pump and to take the breaks that you need,” González said in an interview. “She had no idea.”

AB266 would also require the state’s Department of Health and Human Services publish educational materials online about Medicaid coverage for breastfeeding such as a fact sheet and a list of local lactation services. It would also require the department to launch a public educational campaign to raise awareness about breastfeeding.

Challenges in practice

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, nursing individuals can take reasonable break times when the employee needs to pump and employees legally cannot be denied breaks to pump. The department notes that the duration of breaks may vary depending on factors relating to the individual and child. 

But in Orellana’s experience, those protections weren’t enough. 

After giving birth via cesarean section in January 2024, Orellana returned to work six weeks later. 

“I was physically still healing and in pain,” Orellana said. “But because [I needed] to provide income for my family, it forced me to go back.”

Prior to giving birth, Orellana had a hybrid work schedule, with some days in the office and days working from home. However, three months after coming back from maternity leave, her new supervisor informed her that the hybrid work schedule was no longer feasible. This left Orellana in shambles — not only about how she would find time to pump while at work, but where she could safely store her milk, which needs to be refrigerated. 

Orellana appealed to human resources, which granted her two days a week to work from home (eventually switching to one day) and breaks to breastfeed when she was in office.  

But each break she took cost her —  in a document obtained by The Nevada Independent, UNLV human resources approved 30-minute breaks every two to three hours with the caveat that her shifts would have to be extended to make up for those breaks.

Mothers of newborns need to nurse or pump about every three hours to maintain adequate levels of milk production, and the process roughly takes half an hour each time. 

Orellana still had concerns and responded to the Americans with Disabilities Act administrator Austin Connell, thanking him for the allotted time breaks but said that 30 minutes wasn’t enough time, in part because of the time it takes to disassemble and clean breast pump parts.

“I am having to use the public restroom sinks to clean the parts, which have automatic sinks which make it hard to rinse all the parts, taking more time than the 30 minutes allotted,” Orellana wrote, noting that her office doesn’t have a normal sink or lactation room and she had to ask other staffers for help.

Connell confirmed that there were no manual sinks in the building she worked in, but gave her an additional 15 minutes to pump. Orellana still felt stressed and that she had to be “on her toes” around her supervisor.

“It was always stressful because my supervisor wanted me to make up the breaks later in the day,” Orellana said. “I wasn’t sleeping during the night because my newborn wasn’t sleeping.”

As for storing her breast milk, the office she worked in recommended she buy her own mini fridge to store under her desk. But when her supervisor moved her to the front office with no available electrical outlet for her fridge, isolating her from her supplies and privacy as a nursing mother, she decided to quit.

Orellana stopped breastfeeding after nine months and switched to formula because of her work situation and stress, which can reduce breast milk supply.

“I wish I could have gone longer,” Orellana said. “But the circumstances aren't where I have that kind of space to do that.”

The Nevada Independent reached out to Orellana’s supervisor to seek comment on the allegations. UNLV spokesman Tony Allen responded, saying the school cannot comment on the issues but pointing to the final conclusions of a Title IX investigation into her claims, which said there was insufficient evidence to determine whether there was age or pregnancy status discrimination in the case.

Breastfeeding benefits

The World Health Organization recommends individuals breastfeed for the first two years of a baby’s life, but only about 50 percent of newborns are still breastfed at six months. 

González, who became a first-time mom last year, said she believes the country uses fear to push moms into using formula rather than prioritizing breastmilk. When González was waiting for her supply to come in — it’s common for the body to produce only colostrum and not regular milk for the first few days after birth — she remembers her doctor telling her, “Do you want your daughter to be on a feeding tube tomorrow because you don't want to give her formula?”

“I [was] sitting in this hospital bed, crying, calling my doula, calling my midwife,” González said. “Here I am streaming tears down my face, giving my baby formula because obviously I don't want her to starve. And I didn't know any better.”

González said there isn’t enough education on breastfeeding, leaving new parents to struggle and quit earlier than they hoped. 

“I feel like so many people place the majority of the things about that one moment at birth. When really we should be talking about breastfeeding, we should be talking about education,” González said. “There's so many components to breastfeeding that I think people think is just like this natural process, ‘you throw your baby on your chest and bam,’ which the baby has to learn.”

González noted that when she traveled to Europe, she saw how other countries prioritize breast milk over formula.

When González’s daughter was seven to eight months old, they visited Denmark for a family birthday. When she told her cousins she was going to go to the next room to breastfeed, they were shocked by her modesty and told her she could breastfeed there.

Coming from America, where González said breastfeeding is a bit “taboo,” she still went to another room for privacy. But she eventually became more comfortable nursing in public.

“I was like, ‘I don't care,’ because I'm feeding my baby,” González said. “If you want to sexualize that or make that weird, that's on you.”

Looking forward

When Title IX halted Orellana’s investigation, she went to file a grievance complaint with the graduate school and got a call from the dean. 

“I broke down in tears because she was the only person who had validated my experience,” Orellana said.

Since Orellana quit her prior job, the dean said she would help Orellana find a new position on campus.

None of the available options seemed to have the kind of accommodations Orellana would need, so the dean hired her as a research assistant. 

“She allowed me to work from home, so that's what I've been doing,” Orellana said. “I've been doing research for her on the same topics of how to improve graduate student experience, for graduate student parents, which is very kind of her.”

Orellana was informed there won’t be funding for her position this summer or next fall, which means she will once again be out of a job. But she’s pushing forward — she’s on track to graduate in December with two masters degrees.