Taiwan Mobile has taken positive steps to encourage female employees to breastfeed. Not only have they set up a separate breastfeeding room, they have also installed a hospital-grade pump that is much stronger than commercial ones. (photo by Chuang Kung-ju)

As humans are mammals, it is natural that mothers would breastfeed their young. However, in today's busy world, many women have to return to work after giving birth and can't spend the entire day at home with their babies. Finding ways to balance work and breastfeeding over the long term has become the biggest headache for many working moms.

"I'm producing but I can't find the time or place to pump it." "Pressure from work is making me produce less milk." "Since I can't pump on a set schedule, my milk ducts have become blocked and even infected." These are the sorts of complaints you hear from working mothers who breastfeed.

"Click!" Night is falling at a microchip design firm in the Neihu Technology Park. A female employee who has just used the restroom flips the light switch off on her way out. Xiao Yu (not her real name) calls out from a toilet stall where she is pumping breast milk. She carefully sets the pump and the bottle aside, straightens her clothes, and rushes out to turn the light back on. She then returns to the stall and continues with her "part-time job as a cow."

This kind of anxious breast pumping in the restroom is an everyday experience for Xiao Yu. With a job that keeps her very busy, she's only able to make time for 30-minute breast pumping sessions at noon and in the evening. As the company has no breastfeeding room, she usually "packs baby's lunch" in the restroom and refrigerates it. Her in-laws then feed it to the baby the next day.

Sometimes when she is too busy or a meeting suddenly comes up and she can't keep her regular schedule of one pumping every four or five hours, she often suffers from blockage, and even lumps painful enough to drive her crazy. At such times all she can do is bear it until the work is finished and worry about the swelling afterwards.

"Maybe because there are so many nerves in the breast, every time I massage those lumps it hurts so much that the tears just stream down. I have to tough it out until I get home, and then I let the baby suckle like crazy. Luckily our baby can suck pretty strongly and was able to suck away a few really bad lumps," she says with a wincing smile.