SDSU Lactation Rooms Case Study

It’s another busy day at the Student Union, a bustling central hub on the SDSU campus. Although overcast and gloomy, it’s just as hectic as usual; students and faculty rushing in and out of rooms, as others lounge on the patio chairs. On the 2nd floor of the Union, in the Goodfriend Lounge, a student mother walks out of the lactation room, having just used the facility to pump breast milk. Another mother hurries in immediately afterward, knowing that she has to make the most of her 30-minute time slot before running off to her graduate seminar. SDSU currently has three lactation rooms available on campus: one in the Union, one in Love Library and one in the Women’s Resource Center. These lactation rooms, a relatively new resource required in conformity with California Education Code 222, allow student and faculty mothers to breastfeed and pump their breast milk in a private secure area. Although these lactation rooms are great resources, three rooms for 30,000 students on a 283-acre campus is arguably not enough. Student mothers at SDSU are feeling the impact from the lack of resources and support on campus and are struggling to juggle both motherhood and school. Beth Rahal, Director of Pregnant on Campus, an organization that advocates and serves as a resource for student mothers, spoke of her personal experience as a young mother who …show more content…
According to Huffington Post, “If women don’t pump, or have to wait for a room to open, they can become engorged, which is painful, and can leak all over their clothes.” Most mothers have to pump 2-3 times during an 8-hour workday and the rooms and time slots SDSU currently has available do not meet the measures needed for these student and faculty mothers. “Pumping milk in a physical necessity, and it is timely.” Mothers need a clean and comfortable space to address their lactation and child care