2019 Gumbo final - Book - Page 62
Tiny Tigers
Helping tiger moms
new lactation space with three private stations opened
Friday after a ribbon cutting ceremony in LSU’s Student
Union.
The space is open to all mothers in the LSU
community, including students, faculty, staff and visitors. To access
the rooms, a Tigercard or another form of identification must be
presented to the information desk on the second floor of the
Union.
The University needs at least 12 lactation rooms to accommodate
an adequate number of students and faculty members, according
to Tiny Tigers committee member Dr. Jane Cassidy. In November
2018, she said the program hopes to end up with as many as 15
locations spread across campus. Spots are already available in
Middleton Library and Patrick F. Taylor, among other places listed
on the Women’s Center website.
This new lactation space is the only one in the Union, located
on the second floor across from On-the-Geaux. The space was
previously an unused closet, and turning it into a lactation space
made use of the area while meeting the demand for such a space
in the Union.
Each station includes a chair, a large bottle of hand sanitizer, a roll
of paper towels and a lactation space resource booklet provided
by Tiny Tigers, LSU's official pregnancy and parenting program
that offers information about navigating work and school as a
parent.
Rachel Henry, the director of event managing and marketing for
LSU’s Auxiliary Services and a member of LSU’s Staff Senate,
pushed for a lactation space in the Union. She has had two
children during her time working at the University, and she
struggled to find adequate areas to pump. When a fellow staff
member returned to work after being on maternity leave, Henry
wanted to help.
“I had an opportunity to provide something that wasn’t given when
I was here,” Henry said. “We were able to do a resolution with Staff
Senate, and I was able to make a proposal to add those spaces
here.”
A year-long trial of the space occurred prior to its introduction in
which requests were taken to improve the space. A record was
kept on the number of people requesting and utilizing the space,
which was in the exact same area as the newly dedicated space.
Henry said that, initially, five or six people would use it per month,
and when that number increased to around 10, she realized the
need for an official space there.
Henry said the space will be available for use any time that the
Union is open, and there is no time limit for how long women can
use the stations. So far, there have been no instances of all three
stations in the Union space being used at the same time.
LSU Auxiliary Services is currently open for feedback regarding the
space, and research on how the space can be further improved is
being done.
“We’re going to baby-step it until it’s perfect,” Henry said. “If we get
significant feedback with certain requests, we will absolutely look
Story // Karli Carpenter
Photo // Bella Biondini
Design // Briley Slaton
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