2015 – Page 2 – In Baby Attach Mode

R&D science vs marketing

babyattachmode September 16, 2015 industry / life in the office / science

Sometimes I’d like to write more about the day to day things that happen in my job but a lot of those things are not mine to share on the internet. So let’s try the following for a change:

A scientist and a marketeer went on vacation together. The weather was mixed, some days were nice, others not so much. When they come back, someone asks them: “how was the weather?”

To which the scientist answers:”On 2 out of 14 days it rained for more than 8 hours. In total, there was 20 mm of precipitation, of which 2 was from hail and the rest from rain. On 5 days it was predominantly sunny. The average humidity was 82%. The wind came from the east and in the second week turned to the south east at 15-20 km/h. Wait, let me show you a powerpoint with figures summarizing ALL TEH DATA!”

To the same question, the marketeer answers:”It was sunny!”

How I should have handled the thing

babyattachmode September 6, 2015 Academia / advice / grant writing / life in the lab / postdoc / publishing papers / science

The other day I wrote about how the following thing happened. As many people have pointed out: a. it is hard to distinguish exactly who the idea-owner was, and if so, this is not that important, and b. I should have said something earlier. Looking back, I clearly see what I should have done differently:

First, while we were brainstorming about what I could write my fellowship about, I should have asked if our stuff would be different enough. Perhaps I should have even asked if they were okay with me proposing this, as they may have felt it was close to their research-niche. I guess being open about this, rather than assuming someone would speak up about this could have avoided this situation.

Next, when they told me after I had just joined the lab that they were performing these experiments, I should have said something other than “Oh. Okay”, which is what I said because I was so surprised. I should have expressed my surprise and have a conversation about how to move forward. Instead, I never said anything because I was afraid I would get upset and cry about it. And the longer I waited with saying something, the more upset I got about it.

So the biggest lesson here was that it is important to immediately have a conversation about things like this, instead of just whine about it on the internet.

The following thing happened

babyattachmode September 4, 2015 Academia / advice / grant writing / life in the lab / moving / networking / postdoc / publishing papers / science

A couple years ago I was applying for personal fellowships to return to the homecountry and work in a PI’s lab in order to set up my own group within their bigger lab (which is how things usually go in the homecountry). I talked to a junior groupleader (JG) in this lab and we brainstormed about what I would write in my fellowship. I wrote the fellowship and asked JG for feedback because they had experience with said fellowship. I submitted the fellowship and it got rejected. Twice. Then I moved back to the homecountry and JG told me they were doing one of the experiments that I had proposed in my fellowship. And recently I saw that they had published the results. Aim 1 of my fellowship is done. But not by me. If this doesn’t make you a disgruntledpostdoc, I don’t know what does.

What is the worst academic backstabbing you have experienced?

How many of your co-authors have you never met?

babyattachmode August 31, 2015 Academia / Decisions / life in the lab / meeting / networking / publishing papers / science

Looking at a large list of co-authors on a paper I came across, I wondered what it would look like if all of those people were ever in a room together discussing who would be first author and why. Would every author have met the others? Then I realized that I have published with a couple of people that I have never met in person for a variety of reasons. In fact, of the 12 papers I published, I counted 11 names of people that I have never met in person. I may have corresponded with them via email but I’ve never actually met them. That may be because I was only briefly involved to do one experiment for somebody else’s paper, because there was a collaborator on my paper who figured that their department head also needed to be a co-author or because collaborators were on the other side of the world and my role in the project was never big enough to warrant going there.

What about you? How many of you co-authors have you never met in person and why?

#Quitlit link love

babyattachmode August 26, 2015 Academia / blogging / Decisions / new job / postdoc / role models / women in science

Coincidentally I came across two posts from people I follow who recently transitioned outside academia. I first read Zinemin’s post who writes about working at a large financial corporation for the past 6 months:

I am not used to working in such an orderly and reasonable way. I feel like working like crazy on some days and not doing anything on others, like I am used to, but there is no reason to, I only rarely have deadlines and work is never exciting, there are no real breakthroughs, but also no disappointments, no rejected grant applications.

And then I read Doctor PMS’ post about her transition from academia to a sales position:

I love to talk about science and now I spend most of my time in the phone with researchers, trying to understand their work and helping them to find the right equipment for them.

And Biochembelle has a whole series of posts describing how she decided to leave academia and what it took to find the job she has now.

Buying a house: a complex delay discounting task

babyattachmode August 19, 2015 Decisions / moving / science

Delay discounting for rodents: do you want 1 sucrose pellet now, or 4 sucrose pellets in 40s?

Delay discounting for toddlers: do you want 1 marshmallow now, or 2 marshmallows in 15 min?

Delay discounting for adults: do you want $100 now, or $1000 at the end of the month?

Delay discounting for prospective first-time home buyers: do you want to buy this kind of nice house now (provided nobody else has bought it before you decided to make an appointment to go see it) or wait whether a nicer house comes by – with more space, in a nicer location, etc etc-, not knowing whether the nicer house will actually show up, or whether the interest rate on mortgages, which is really low now, will still be low then. Or wait five more years in the very comfortable rental place that you are in now so that you will have more spendable income (provided you both will keep your jobs) and buy an even more expensive and nicer house then (but what will happen to the interest rates in 5 years?!).

How on earth do people make decisions about buying a house? But then again, how do rats decide between rewards… can someone measure my dopamine?

A melancholious post

babyattachmode August 8, 2015 ideas

Earlier this evening I was driving home. BlueEyes, Little Brother and my husband had fallen asleep in the car and I was listening to the Mars CD from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Stadium Arcadium album. I realized that the first time I listened to this album was when it had just come out in 2006 and I was cutting a zillion brains on the cryostat. I remembered that this was just around the time that I started realizing that perhaps the grad student in the lab that I liked having coffee with might be a better match for me than the person I was living with at that time.

I also listened to this album a lot driving through California before going to the first ever SfN meeting I would attend in San Diego in 2007. The grad student I like hanging out with had now become my boyfriend.

I also listened to this album after the next SfN in San Diego when we drove to San Francisco. The grad student that had become my boyfriend was now the father-to-be of the baby I just found out I was pregnant with.

I looked around in the car at the grad student that had become my husband, that unborn baby that was now a 4-year-old and the sun that was setting outside.

I had just read in the paper about how a nursing home had people with dementia listening to songs from when they were young and how that comforted them. And I pictured myself there in the future, listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers once more and I realized all the more how ridiculously fleeting and fragile everything is. And as The Red Hot Chili Peppers sang that “the thing we need is never all that hard to find” I realized that all of that was in that moment right there sleeping in the car with me.

Repost: pumping milk at work – a technical report

babyattachmode August 5, 2015 breastfeeding / pumping milk / women in science / work-life balance

This week is World Breastfeeding week and this year’s theme is combining breastfeeding and work, so I decided to repost this post from May 2012. But before I do that, I want to draw your attention to this Kickstarter that has only 7 days left to raise money for a new type of breast pump that uses compression instead of suction, and can be used very discreetly, which might be nice if you’re traveling or have no access to a proper lactation room.

Disclaimer: I have no ties to Kohana, Inc and have never tried their breast pump, but I think this innovation is really cool and I hope they raise enough money to continue the development.

Introduction

Recently, there were a couple of articles in the news talking about how breast feeding is not free at all, because women who breastfeed longer than 6 months earn significantly less, even five years after their baby was born, compared to women who breastfeed shorter than 6 months or women who formula feed their infants. It turns out that this difference in earnings is mostly because women who breastfeed longer than 6 months work a lot less than the other groups. In other words, women who (have to) go back to work sooner apparently have a hard time breastfeeding past 6 months.

To me breastfeeding is like walking; you do it because you can. And if you can’t, there are alternatives like using a wheelchair. However, very few people use a wheelchair if they are able to walk just because it is more convenient. That’s not to say that breastfeeding is easy: it’s a learned skill and the fact that we rarely ever see people nurse their babies makes it harder to learn. The same holds true for pumping milk; even though there are some great resources online, when you have to do it yourself you’ve probably never seen someone else pump milk, and perhaps you don’t even have women nearby to ask questions. That’s why I decided to write up what has worked for me over the past months.

Materials and methods

It’s very important to have a good double sided electric breast pump. I have the Medela pump in style , but if I’d have to choose again I would probably go for the Medela Freestyle, since it’s weighs a lot less, which is nice if you go to a conference. Save your receipt, because breast pumps can be tax deductible. The advantage of the black signature Medela bags is that it’s also an easy way to come into contact with other pumping moms who recognize your bag (yes, this happened to me multiple times). It is important that your breast shields fit well; you can ask a lactation consultant for advice. I also have one of these, so that I can pump hands free.

Before going back to work it is important that 1) your baby can drink from a bottle and 2) you have familiarized yourself with your breast pump. To do this, I started pumping one feed in the evening when BlueEyes was 6 weeks old (apparently there’s a window between 4-8 weeks when it’s best to teach babies to drink from a bottle. I have no idea whether that is true but it worked for us.) and Dr. BrownEyes would give him the bottle. I noticed that it takes some practice to pump a decent amount of milk, so don’t worry if you don’t pump a lot the first time. It is also nice to have about a week’s supply of milk in the fridge before you go back to work, so that if pumping doesn’t go well because you’re too stressed in that first week, at least you don’t have to worry about having too little milk to feed your baby. I built a supply in the freezer by giving BlueEyes a little bit less milk in the evening than the amount I pumped (don’t worry about the baby, he will drink whatever he needs during the night). If that doesn’t work: your supply is highest in the morning, so alternatively you can nurse your baby on one breast and then pump the other to build up your freezer stash. Also, make sure to figure out ahead of time where you can pump. I realize that having a clean room and a fridge available is a luxury, and that that’s probably why more higher educated women continue to breast feed, but no one should be afraid to ask for this. In some countries it is a right for women to pump milk for their baby during work hours.

Results

So for the past 6 months I have been pumping milk at work for BlueEyes. Until a couple weeks ago I religiously pumped for about 15 minutes at 10AM and 1PM every day. This fit very well with my experiments, which I think is part of why it worked so well for me. I would cut brain slices, and while those were incubating I would pump the first time, and when I was done with my recording experiment I would pump the second time. I have two sets of breast shields, so I don’t have to bother about washing them in between. I pumped about 200-250 ml (6-9 oz) in total, and because BlueEyes drinks a bit more, I would also pump in the morning after I nursed him. In total I pumped about 300 ml (10 oz) and that’s exactly what he drank in daycare. Being a post-doc, I obviously don’t have my own office, but our department has an empty office that the pumping women can use to pump milk. Now that BlueEyes is eating solids and I have the feeling that my supply is pretty stable, I usually pump once or sometimes twice at work (my total yield is still about 250-300 ml per day).

Troubleshooting

What can you do when you are not pumping enough milk for your baby?

Your milk supply is a matter of supply (duh) and demand, so the first thing to do is pump more often or try to get multiple letdown reflexes during one pumping session. Also, make sure you empty your breasts well, because that will let your body know that more milk is needed. What I would sometimes do if my supply was getting low, was to ‘cluster pump’ at night. After BlueEyes had gone to bed I would pump according to the following schedule (pump 7 min – rest 7 min – pump 5 min – rest 5 min – pump 3 min – rest 3 min – pump 1 min). This did not yield a lot of milk at the time of pumping, because I had just nursed BlueEyes to sleep, but it does give a pretty good boost for your milk supply.

If this doesn’t work sufficiently, you can take various herbs, teas or foods to increase your supply . I’ve personally never tried that, but I’ve heard it works.

What can you do when it takes you very long to pump?

To me, the time it takes to pump depends for the most part on how long it takes me to get a letdown reflex. Some people like to look at pictures or movies of their baby to speed this up, but I usually just take a couple deep breaths (at home it even helps me to picture the empty office I usually pump in). However, if you still have problems getting a letdown reflex, and therefore need a long time to empty your breasts, you can consider using an oxytocin nasal spray.

Conclusion

I wrote this post to share my experience and to show that it is very possible to breastfeed for at least 6 months and work. Even though I couldn’t believe it at first, breastfeeding does get better and more fun and much less painful (even not painful at all) after 6 months.

Another disclaimer: I’m not a lactation consultant or any other type of medical professional. However, feel free to comment or email me if you have any questions.

The thing that made going back to work after maternity leave a bit easier

babyattachmode July 29, 2015 advice / breastfeeding / Decisions / parenting / pumping milk / women in science / work-life balance

I recently came across Laura Vanderkam’s post about dealing with going back to work after your maternity leave. It made me think about the one thing that I did when going back to work after BlueEyes was born and that was for my husband to take a week off to take care of BlueEyes the first week I went back to work (BlueEyes was 3 months when I went back). This was a great thing for us for a couple of reasons:

1. By being home for a week with BlueEyes my husband realized what it takes to be home with a baby and why some days when I was on maternity leave I would be ecstatic to have contact with another grown-up after being home with a baby all day. He realized how exhausting it was, how for some reason you get nothing done all day and by 5 PM you find yourself on the couch with a crying baby, still dressed in pajamas that may or may not have been puked on. After this, he would never ask:”what have you done all day?” on days that I was home.

2. For me, it was nice to go back to work and not have to worry about how BlueEyes was doing in daycare that first week. Instead, I only had to worry about pumping milk, being incredibly sleep deprived, not fitting in my old clothes yet, trying to remember what I was sciencing about before going on leave and adjusting to being this entirely different person who was mostly very alert whether somebody was crying or hungry.

3. I don’t know if for BlueEyes it mattered whether he was home with my husband or at daycare. I like to think it was a nice transition for him, to have to drink from a bottle but still be in the house that he knew before going to daycare, but with such a little baby, it’s hard to know.

I think my ideal situation would be to have some hybrid work-baby situation with a small baby: be able to bring them to work or be able to work a bit from home (which I did much more with Little Brother), or be able to have both parents work half days, but of course each baby (and parent) is different. What would your ideal transition back to work look like?

I mostly miss my coping mechanism

babyattachmode July 23, 2015 Academia / cultural differences / industry / life in the office / new job

It has been nearly a year since I left academia and joined a company. The shiny novelty about having a new job with new and different rules and new people has passed a little and I’m starting to feel comfortable in my new role. Before leaving academia I thought what I would miss the most would be recording from cells or generating data myself. And when I think about it I kind of miss the excitement of doing experiments, but I don’t really miss the anxiety about whether I will be able to interpret my data, whether my data will look nice and whether it will be publishable. I don’t miss hours of struggling to record form a cell only to bump against my table and loose my cell. I don’t miss changing animal cages.

However, what I do miss is my coping mechanism. When I was doing my PhD, I would imagine what my defense day would look like. I would imagine how I would feel when my PhD was done and I would hold the book in my hand. I would imagine how incredibly happy I would be when a publication would be accepted.

During my post-doc, I would imagine what I would feel like having gotten a fellowship or a grant. I imagined how people would congratulate me and tell me I had deserved this after all my hard work. I would imagine how – further in the future – I would maybe become a full professor, which in my homecountry is accompanied by having a whole day of festivities including giving your inaugural lecture in front of the whole university. I would imagine how awesome that would be. On crappy days I had this mantra in my head and I would repeat “keep your eyes on the prize” over and over to keep writing, experimenting and analyzing data.

In my new job, the future is much less clear. There is not one path, but there are many paths one can take. There’s less need for a coping mechanism because I feel much more at ease here, but at the same time I notice that I used these fantasies about the future as my motivation to get work done.

I guess I may need new incentives and I don’t know what those are yet.