Lactation rooms on campus could provide space for parents to nurse their children.
During her years as a student and parent at Ohio University two years ago, Ashley Beatty-Smith was not aware that lactation rooms existed on campus.
“I think a lot of students with children aren’t aware of the resources available to them, and it can be an uncomfortable topic to talk to professors or to academic advisors (about),” Beatty-Smith, now the global programs coordinator in Walter International Education Center, said.
According to a 2014 study by the Institute of Women’s Policy Research, 26 percent of undergraduate students in the year 2011 were parents of dependent children. Roughly two million students from that number were mothers who had to nurse their children while being in college.
Currently, OU has two official lactation rooms, one in Baker Center and another in Irvine Hall.
However, the Women’s Center has been approached about the lack of lactation rooms around campus and has held several focus groups on the importance of having those spaces on campus.
M. Geneva Murray, the director of the Women’s Center, said the focus groups have found that parents on campus have been “doing lots of DIY kind of situations” and using empty classrooms or exam rooms to either breastfeed or pump breast milk. In one case, a mother had to use an empty closet in order to pump, Murray said.
“People have different experiences when it comes to (breastfeeding or) pumping, and for some it needs to be a very serene place where you can … really focus on trying to get your body to cooperate,” Murray said. “Putting people in closets isn’t necessarily ideal.”
Another result of the focus group found parents expressing that it was taking them longer to get to a lactation room than it was for them to actually be able to breastfeed or pump, Murray said.
“When you are a new parent … and you’re choosing to breastfeed or pump, lactation is something that really takes up a huge amount of your day,” Sarah Jenkins, the program coordinator of the Women’s Center, said.
Jenkins said the topic of lactation rooms is often undiscussed despite the importance of having those spaces available in public areas.
“A lot of women … don’t necessarily have (their) own office,” Jenkins said. “No one wants to sit on a toilet and pump or breastfeed just like no one wants to eat in the bathroom.”
One of the things that people who have never breast fed do not realize is how long it takes and how often a child needs it, Patty Stokes, a visiting assistant professor in women’s and gender studies, said.
“When (children are) little it could be every two to three hours … and that doesn’t mean that you have two hours in between (to rest),” Stokes said.
Stokes described the process as if it were a full-time job.
“When people say breast feeding is free, it’s only really free if you don’t count the time that the mother spends doing that,” Stokes said.
Another problem that mothers may face is that the over sexualization of the breast has caused breastfeeding to be viewed as indecent when done in public, especially “in a society where you feel a little bit uncomfortable” to do so in public, Stokes said.
“The whole breastfeeding thing really boggles my mind when I think of how often we see breasts in sexualized ways … but somehow seeing a woman breastfeed (in public) is what is seen as obscene,” Jenkins said.
One of the Women’s Center’s plans to increase those spaces on campus is through working with the university to ensure future buildings and remodels include a lactation room with necessities provided.
Supporting parents who want to use those spaces to either nurse their children or pump to nurse their children is important, as it is not only a commitment to gender equity, but also makes OU a friendlier campus, Murray said.
"(The question is) are we providing enough spaces in order for people to still be able to nurse or pump when they come to campus for different activities?" Murray said.
Though having two lactation rooms on campus is great, she said, it still poses a problem for some people who may not be close to the buildings where the lactation rooms are located.
“Even if I would have known about it, with having one room in Baker it would not have been (convenient) if I had classes on the opposite side of campus,” Beatty-Smith said.
Stokes said the spaces play an important role, especially for graduate and undergraduate students who are parents on campus, as they are less likely to have a private place on campus they can go to.
Beyond the question of public breastfeeding, there is also a whole world of experiences regarding motherhood that are only discussed amongst new mothers, she said.
“Even during pregnancy, there’s not a lot talked about it (other than) people getting advice to breastfeed because ‘breast is best’,” Stokes said. “There’s not a lot of talk about what do you do if you have difficulties, if you have an infection or (if) you’re not producing enough milk.”
Beatty-Smith said she the number of college students who have children or may be expecting children is a lot higher than people realize.
Connecting people who have children can start a conversation and help de-stigmatize the experience of not only breast feeding and using the lactation rooms, but also help student-parents feel comfortable bringing their children on campus, Beatty-Smith said.
“People who have children and are students often feel like they’re alone, so they don’t know what resources (there are) or they feel uncomfortable being a parent in public on campus,” Beatty-Smith said.
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