Most new mothers in the UK return to work with in six to nine months of giving birth.
That’s according to the latest government statistics which also discovered a third plan to stop or cut back on breast feeding when they do. There is no legal requirement for British employers to provide a facility or time where mothers can attend and express their milk in order to feed their baby. This can be classed as a form of discrimination as it means a large proportion of the work force is being singled out and might not be being given the chance to earn a living for themselves just because they have a child to look after.
The only duty in law sits in Regulation 25 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, and it reads, in full: “Suitable facilities shall be provided for any person at work who is a pregnant woman or nursing mother to rest.” There is no mention of the words expressing or breastfeeding as ACAS puts it:
“Parliament has not legislated to make breastfeeding/expressing breaks in the workplace a statutory requirement.”
The British statute book imagines a place where a mother can sit down to take care of any maternal roles or instincts that she might need to cover. Data published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities illustrates the collision in the first England wide infant feeding survey since 2010.
More than half of mothers who return to work (56%) do so when their baby is six to nine months old. That is the window when statutory maternity pay has already dropped to a flat rate of GBP 194.32 a week, and before most funded childcare begins.
Around a third (36%) of mothers who intended to return to work planned to stop or reduce breastfeeding when they did.
Even the NHS doesn’t manage it
Research published in the International Journal of Law and Society in February 2025, surveying nearly 1,000 NHS employees, found that half had no lockable room in which to express, 51% had no fridge to store milk in, and 69% had insufficient time. Only 36% worked somewhere with a breastfeeding policy at all.
Just over three quarters of staff were breastfeeding when they returned to work.
If the health service — an employer of midwives, health visitors and lactation consultants — cannot reliably provide a door that locks, it is worth asking what a warehouse, a school or a call centre provides.
What the survey asks, and what it can’t see
In the same government survey, “returning to work or education” as a reason for having already stopped breastfeeding rises across the first year — 1% of mothers at two to five months, 3% at four to seven months, and 6% at eight to ten months.
Laura McGrath, Founder and CEO of Lola&Lykke, said:
“I’m Finnish, and I think that’s why this stood out to me. Where I’m from, the assumption is that if you want mothers to breastfeed and you want them back at work, you have to make both things physically possible. It isn’t a moral position, it’s just logistics.
“In Britain there’s a great deal of encouragement for mothers to breastfeed for longer, and then almost nothing that makes it possible once she’s back at her desk. We talk about a mother’s determination. We don’t talk about whether there’s a room.”
HSE says employers must provide a suitable area where pregnant workers and breastfeeding mothers can rest. Its guidance says this should be hygienic and private so women can express milk and should include somewhere to store milk, such as a fridge.
ACAS states that there is no general statutory right to breastfeeding or expressing breaks at work. Workplace arrangements affecting breastfeeding can, depending on the circumstances, also raise issues under sex discrimination law.
