Breastfeeding, Expressing & Touring: Making Music and Early years Motherhood Work - is it possible?
Is it possible to work in the music industry, have a baby, tour and Breastfeed?
This is a big question and can be difficult for new mums to navigate the whole subject of breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding while working in the music industry shouldn’t mean choosing between feeding your baby and doing your job. But for artists, musicians, DJs, performers, producers, tour managers and crew, the realities of touring can make breastfeeding and expressing milk complicated.
So why am I thinking about Breastfeeding?
I am an Infant Feeding Specialist Dietitian and have completed the UNICEF Baby Friendly course through the Breastfeeding Network.
The WHO's current 2025–2030 breastfeeding policy brief describes exclusive breastfeeding as having the single largest potential impact on child mortality of any preventive intervention and estimates that optimal breastfeeding could save more than 820,000 children under five each year. What? Almost a million children each year? Why aren’t we talking about this?
So why is Breastfeeding so important for babies and why are we really not great at breastfeeding in the UK compared to the rest of Europe? UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative statistics.
Is it possible to even combine working in the music industry and be a mum? Long days, unpredictable schedules, backstage environments, travel, festivals, limited privacy and venues that were never designed with breastfeeding women in mind can all create additional challenges.
Breastfeeding provides important health benefits for both baby and mother. For babies, breast milk provides highly bioavailable nutrition alongside antibodies and other immune factors that help protect against infections, particularly gastrointestinal and respiratory infections, while supporting healthy immune and gut development. Longer-term, breastfeeding is associated with lower risks of childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes, as well as benefits for cognitive development. For mothers, breastfeeding supports recovery after birth through oxytocin release and uterine contraction, and is associated with lower risks of breast and ovarian cancers, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. These benefits make breastfeeding an important public-health intervention which is why mothers who want to breastfeed deserve practical, skilled and workplace support to make it possible.
The good news? A little planning can make a huge difference.
The key is to treat expressing and breastfeeding support as part of your tour logistics and not an afterthought. If you are away from your child overnight or for a few days you will need to express milk to keep up the supply. Also you may need to express so that someone else can feed your child while you are performing.
1. Put breastfeeding into the rider
If you need to express milk while working, it belongs in your rider.
Don’t rely on finding somewhere when you arrive. Ask for what you need in advance and make it clear that it is part of your working requirements.
Ideally, request:
A clean, private and lockable room that is not a bathroom
A comfortable chair and a nearby electrical socket
Access to handwashing facilities
A reliable fridge or freezer for storing expressed milk
A clear agreement about where your milk will be stored and who has access to it
Pumping breaks built around soundcheck, performance and travel schedules
Speak to your tour manager, production manager and stage manager what you need. Your breast milk expressing schedule should be treated with the same respect as any other essential part of the day’s production plan.
2. Have a Plan B and C
Music venues can be unpredictable. Power points disappear. Green rooms become storage rooms. Festival tents can be miles from the nearest socket.
Your touring kit might therefore include:
A rechargeable or battery-powered breast pump
A wearable or portable pump can be particularly useful when you’re moving between locations, although comfort and effectiveness are individual.
A manual pump
Small, lightweight and reassuringly low-tech. If your electronic pump fails, your manual pump becomes your backstage hero.
Spare charging options
Keep charging cables, power banks and appropriate travel adapters with you rather than packed away in the main luggage.
A vehicle charging solution
Depending on your equipment, a suitable vehicle power supply or inverter can provide another option when travelling between cities — but always follow the pump manufacturer’s electrical requirements.
3. Think about milk storage before you leave
Expressed breast milk needs to be handled and stored safely, so cold-chain logistics matter when you’re touring.
Before travelling, establish:
Where milk will be refrigerated backstage
Whether a hotel room has a suitable fridge
How milk will be transported between venues
What cooling equipment you will use
How long milk can safely be kept under the conditions you’re travelling in
A good-quality insulated cooler and sufficient frozen ice packs can be invaluable on the road.
And don’t forget the simplest trick of all: label your milk.
Name, date and time can prevent confusion when you’re sharing a backstage fridge with a cast of musicians, crew, catering and approximately 400 cans of something nobody remembers buying.
4. Build expressing into the travel day
Touring often means leaving the venue at midnight, travelling for hours and arriving at another city when everyone else is asleep.
Your body, unfortunately, doesn’t care about the tour bus schedule.
Try to establish a realistic schedule around your baby’s feeding pattern and your own comfort. Build expressing windows into the itinerary rather than trying to squeeze them into whatever gaps happen to appear.
This might mean expressing:
Before leaving → during travel → at the venue → after the show
The exact pattern will vary depending on your baby’s age, feeding frequency, your milk supply and whether you are breastfeeding directly when you are home.
The important thing is to plan rather than improvise.
5. Know the rules before you travel internationally
International touring adds another layer of complexity. Breast milk, pumps and cooling equipment may be subject to specific airport security and border-control rules and these vary by country.
Before flying, check the current rules for every country on your itinerary rather than assuming the regulations will be the same everywhere.
Keep your milk clearly organised and accessible, and allow extra time for security screening. If you’re travelling with expressed milk, cooling packs or pumping equipment, having the relevant information available can make the process much less stressful.
6. Don’t forget milk pump hygiene
Sterilising and cleaning pump parts can become surprisingly difficult when your backstage facilities consist of a sink, a bottle of hand soap and a toilet that someone has just used as a dressing room.
Plan ahead.
Pack enough clean pump parts to reduce the need for repeated washing during a long day, and follow your pump manufacturer’s instructions for cleaning and sterilising.
A small dedicated hygiene kit can include:
Spare pump parts
Storage bags or containers
Cleaning supplies
A clean drying cloth or surface
Hand sanitiser for situations where handwashing isn’t immediately available
7. Talk about your journey before you’re exhausted
Perhaps the most important strategy is communication.
Speak with your team, share what you need before the tour starts. Explain what you need and your intention to breastfeed and how much time this takes and what’s involved.
A supportive production team can make breastfeeding and expressing dramatically easier. A team that doesn’t know what you need may unintentionally make things much harder.
You shouldn’t have to apologise for needing 20 minutes to express milk.
You shouldn’t have to express in a toilet.
And you shouldn’t have to choose between protecting your milk supply and doing your job.
I love the openness that Paloma Faith has about her breastfeeding journey - she has 3 children and each child has been different. Have a read of Paloma’s story here on Instagram - nothing is ever perfect but I love how Paloma has spoken about the ups and downs of breast feeding.
The bigger conversation
Women have always worked in music. Women have always been mothers. And women have always had babies while continuing to create, perform, tour, manage, teach and build careers.
The industry needs to catch up.
Breastfeeding support shouldn’t depend on whether an artist is famous enough to demand it. It should be part of creating genuinely inclusive working environments across music from grassroots venues and festivals to international tours.
For women returning to work after having a baby, good nutrition, hydration, rest and practical breastfeeding support all matter.
And sometimes the most important piece of advice is simply this:
Plan ahead. Ask for what you need. Take your space. And don’t apologise for being both a brilliant professional and a breastfeeding mum. ❤️
This is general information rather than individual breastfeeding or medical advice. Breastfeeding and expressing needs vary considerably, so seek personalised support from a registered dietitian, midwife, health visitor or lactation specialist when needed.
Good Luck - you are amazing!
Sally J Freeman
Consultant Dietitian and UNICEF Infant Feeding Specialist.
Resources for Breastfeeding:
1. NHS - Breastfeeding and Bottle Feeding - https://www.nhs.uk/baby/breastfeeding-and-bottle-feeding/breastfeeding/expressing-breast-milk/
Breastfeeding Network - https://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk
Paloma’s story on the Tommy Website - https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/pregnancy-news-blogs/paloma-faith-getting-real-about-breastfeeding-and-engorgement
Want to Speak to someone? Call the Breastfeeding support network - Speak to a trained breastfeeding supporter on 0300 100 0212. You can call us about anything related to breastfeeding or chestfeeding – whether you’re pregnant and have questions, if you have a newborn and are finding it tough, if you’re ready to wean or perhaps you’re breastfeeding a toddler and need to talk to someone about it – our volunteers are here to support you whatever your situation.
All calls, messages and chats are answered by volunteers – all of whom are trained and supported by The Breastfeeding Network or the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers.