Breastfeeding/Pumping in College - A Benchmarking Post - Does your university have policies for...

[rosadesal]

I'm in the process of developing a family resource center on campus and establishing a breastfeeding initiative for students. Currently, universities are required by law to provide space for faculty/employees, but nothing has been regulated or enforced for students in terms of accessibility to appropriate spaces to pump. I'm wondering if you could share with me what you know about universities that DO have breastfeeding policies in place, and any other relevant info. Bonus points if you're in Michigan, although I'm already familiar with MSU's policies.

This may be a good post to tag for future reference if enough people reply - it would be great to know who does and does not have established breastfeeding policies/facilities, yeah? :)

Thanks!

[UrbanMamma]

I'm not sure if our university has a student specific policy.  The state law is very generous to faculty, but they mostly use their offices.  Students are directed to a decent (as in good chairs, plug, and sink nearby) pumping area in the student union.  I only use that spot for pumping because there is so much traffic (kind of the 'rest' area on the way to the bathroom) that my little one would be way too distracted.  But, we live in a very NIP city (with a good NIP state law for legal protection), so it doesn't matter much - any chair in a corner of a lobby will get the job done for nursing.  My other gripe is that because we are a very large campus, it takes 10 minutes for me to walk over to that area.

Another way to gauge how friendly a university campus is for mothers is to see how many changing tables are available.  Again, most bathrooms in the unions have them, but go to the individual buildings and you are out of luck - even for buildings built in the past 10 years.  Apparently there is a woman's group on campus that is trying to get traction on this issue as well by suggesting that someone from their board sit on the building/remodeling board for facilities. 

[rosadesal]

I'm specifically looking for info I can present at various meetings taking place over the next few weeks to show other successful programs/initiatives. We also have an on-campus childcare center, but they also only take children 18 months or older, and so we not only have a gap in addressing breastfeeding, but also infant care! We're working with the Building Management people (I'm at Eastern Michigan University, by the way) and I'm trying to run this out of our Women's Resource Center, but they're asking for benchmarking/statistics/presentations and I'm hoping this might be a good resource. Thank you so much for your thoughts. I think women would be more than welcome to NIP here - I know I wouldn't be uncomfortable doing it or seeing it, but I'm a little biased! However, you bring up a good point with the walk - if you've got 15 minutes between classes, and you've got to walk 10 minutes to a place to pump/nurse, that's not going to happen.
 

Originally Posted by UrbanMamma 

I'm not sure if our university has a student specific policy.  The state law is very generous to faculty, but they mostly use their offices.  Students are directed to a decent (as in good chairs, plug, and sink nearby) pumping area in the student union.  I only use that spot for pumping because there is so much traffic (kind of the 'rest' area on the way to the bathroom) that my little one would be way too distracted.  But, we live in a very NIP city (with a good NIP state law for legal protection), so it doesn't matter much - any chair in a corner of a lobby will get the job done for nursing.  My other gripe is that because we are a very large campus, it takes 10 minutes for me to walk over to that area.

Another way to gauge how friendly a university campus is for mothers is to see how many changing tables are available.  Again, most bathrooms in the unions have them, but go to the individual buildings and you are out of luck - even for buildings built in the past 10 years.  Apparently there is a woman's group on campus that is trying to get traction on this issue as well by suggesting that someone from their board sit on the building/remodeling board for facilities. 

[UrbanMamma]

I think you are going to have a hard time nailing down policies.  My experience has been (and I haven't looked at it in about 4 years) that it is piecemeal at best.  Most changes are informal and not formal policy driven.  The administrations always want numbers but nobody tracks them internally much less for public consumption.

We had some luck gaining traction on the changing table issue by showing potential demand - specifically, how many female non-traditional students under the age of 40 were enrolled.  You can look at state or federal fertility stats to calculate how many of those women are likely having a baby per year and then make the case from there as far as potential demand.  I'm at a large (30K) urban campus - Portland State - so this was a lot.  I think the current informal policy is that each new building (and fully remodeled building) has at least one changing table -  usually on the first floor - for each sex.

For what it is worth, I recall UC-Berkeley having the most aggressive infant care co-op model when I was looking at this before.  Ours does take 6 month olds... but only 20 for a campus of 30K students plus faculty and staff.  As you can imagine, the wait-list is through the roof.  We proclaim to have drop in care, but they have to be 12 months and you have to reserve it.  Again, never any space.

[Anna Phor]

George Washington University: http://www.gwu.edu/hr/colonialcommunity/worklife/motherhood_room.html

The wife of the University Provost is a lactation consultant.

[One_Girl]

The university I attended didn't have official policies but the different departments tended to work with students and the Women's Center worked with mother's to find space for women to pump.

[Sharon, RN]

I'm a little late to this party, but my university has a lactation room for breastfeeding and/or pumping.  Here's the link: 

http://library.uncg.edu/spaces/lactation_room.aspx

The only sad thing is that when I originally called Student Health about having a room to pump (seemed like a logical choice), they did not know about this room!  Student health was very supportive and always found a place for me to pump, but I wish they had told me about this place first.  

ETA:  They supply a hospital grade pump for students or faculty!  How great is that?

[Drummer's Wife]

My university also has hospital-grade pumps available for use and several lactation rooms that can be used for pumping or nursing if you prefer it over somewhere more public. 

Here is their page with info and policies: UNM Breastfeeding Support Program

[cameragirl]

From my JC: http://www.sierracollege.edu/StudentServices/mothersplace.html

The info is a little sparse, but they do provide a private room in the middle of campus for mothers.