Rooms across campus are allowing women to fulfill a motherly duty without having to take time out from their responsibilities as students, professors and employees.

These rooms, called Lactation Locations, assist women in either breast-feeding their children or expressing milk for storage.

Iowa State has taken the lead among universities nationwide in a coordinated effort to provide various Lactation Locations for mothers.

The Margaret Sloss Women’s Center has provided a private space along with an electric breast pump and lactation information for many years, but it wasn’t until the 2001—02 academic year that this service expanded across campus.

Penny Rice, director of the Margaret Sloss Women’s Center, along with Margie Tabor, program coordinator of facilities planning and management, worked to make the expansion possible.

For 18 months, Rice worked with a committee to designate space throughout campus, apply signage and install chairs, lighting and locks. The outcome is the 11 current Lactation Locations, which provide a place for mothers to express milk.

“Ideally, there would be a Lactation Location in every building,” Rice said.

As more buildings at Iowa State are remodeled and constructed, Rice said she hopes to create more lactation rooms.

One reason for the expansion of lactation rooms was demand; the Lactation Location at the women’s center was highly utilized by students, staff and faculty for many years, she said.

Rice said she could recall one semester when the room was used every hour by a different woman.

“The lactation facility at the Sloss House was booked all the time that semester, and the University Child Care Committee and the women’s center thought it would be appropriate to try to find some additional locations on campus,” Tabor said. “The provost’s office was also supportive of identifying additional locations. I think there has been an increase in the number of mothers who are nursing, and we wanted to support that choice.”

Amy Hassinger, a temporary instructor for the English department who now lives in Michigan, said she used the Lactation Location at the women’s center twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday mornings during the fall semester of 2001.

The travel created a problem for mothers who had to leave their offices or classrooms, express their milk and arrive back to either their office or class in a time efficient manner, Rice said.

Hassinger said she was fortunate, because she taught in Ross Hall, and it took her five minutes to walk from her classroom to the women’s center.

For mothers working at the Veterinary Medicine Building or the north part of campus, the location at the Women’s Center was not convenient and halted their ability to nurse their children without interrupting their daily lives, Rice said.

Hassinger said there should be more Lactation Locations around campus, because it takes a sufficient amount of time walking to the location and pumping.

“Space is in critical demand across campus, so I tried to identify common spaces, such as the lounges adjacent to women’s restrooms, that could be used to offer privacy and would also be easily accessible to all women,” Tabor said.

The University Child Care Committee started receiving inquiries about more locations of lactation rooms throughout campus, which Rice said led her and other women to explore possibilities for alternate areas.

After the new lactation rooms were installed, Rice said she received a great deal of positive feedback from faculty and staff.

Women were thankful to be able to return to work and continue to nurse their babies, Rice said. Students also appreciated being able to come to campus and have the privacy of lactation rooms.

“[An instructor] would not have been able to teach her class and continue to breast-feed exclusively, had it not been for the Lactation Location at the women’s center,” Hassinger said.

Inside the lactation rooms, women are provided with information on breast-feeding, information about La Leche League, an international support group for breast-feeding mothers and information from Mary Greeley Medical Center for additional support.