“Lactation rooms are an innovative solution to one of the challenges of being a working mother or a student parent,” said Maureen Duane, Dean of Students in Tempe for Arizona State University.
Mothers are allowed to breastfeed in public and are excluded from public indecency laws in the state of Arizona, but there are currently no state laws in place that support mothers breastfeeding in the workplace. Although, the federal Fair Labor Standards Act does offer protection for hourly breastfeeding employees.
Having spaces for mothers to be able to breastfeed “normalizes breastfeeding and helps reduce the stigma,” said Erin Raczynski, mother of two.
“There is so much research that supports the importance of breastfeeding, so having a space available for mom and the growth and development of the baby as well as for the bonding that happens through breastfeeding is also so important,” Raczynski said.
Arizona State University also plays an active role in providing support for breastfeeding mothers on campus by having rooms readily available at any time for mothers to breastfeed or fridges to store breast milk in.
Along with being the Dean of Students in Tempe, Maureen Duane is also the chair of Educational Outreach and Student Services, she provides help to mothers in need of insulated coolers and ice packs to store their breast milk in.
“Thanks to the advocacy efforts of the academic senate committee in 2018, I worked with ASU architects and space planners to identify and expand the number of private, designated lactation (sometimes called Wellness) spaces available on the four campuses,” Duane said.
With this, Duane said that there are now design guidelines in place so that when new buildings for ASU are being built, they will include these spaces.
“Research shows that supporting breastfeeding in the workplace and school holds many benefits for employers, including: Reductions in medical costs for mother and child, fewer absences to care for a sick child, and improvement in retaining employees,” Duane said.
Raczynski believes that mothers should never have to go to their car to feed their child when out in public, saying “every baby has the right to eat when they’re hungry, infants are fed on demand.”
“I never realized how important mothers being able to breastfeed whenever they need to was, until I became a mom, and then it became my lived experience,” Raczynski said.
Becoming empowered and proud of being able to breastfeed in public, Raczynski finds it so important to not simply stop with providing spaces for mothers, but to make it more acceptable and normal for a mother to breastfeed her baby anywhere she needs.
Raczynski had a different experience than most mothers have, being as she was able to bring her daughters into work with her in their first six months, but many are not offered that opportunity.
“There is not enough being done, we don’t have paid parental leave and we don’t have nursing or baby at work programs for everybody,” Raczynski said.
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