An Open Letter For Humanizing Mothers' Rooms

To CEO’s, real estate investors, facility managers, real estate brokers, commercial building architects and designers,

Would you eat your 4-course meal in a restroom?
I bet your answer is NO! Yet a lot of working mothers are left with the only option to pump baby milk in a restroom, cleaning room, print room or storage room so that they can provide healthy nutrition for their baby’s. That is the reason why I am writing this open letter on behalf of kids of the future generation and their working mothers.

When your organization is relocating to a new location, expanding or your client is looking into a new office, please ensure that a proper mothers’ room/ lactation room/pumping room/ breastfeeding room is included in the design of the office or in the commercial building.

How would you feel if your mother or your spouse had to provide baby milk from an unhygienic room?
Taking care of a new baby can be a challenge for most mothers, dealing with sleep, figuring out all the different baby cries, trying to deal with the parent role, let alone advocate for having a comfortable mothers’ room in the workplace. Unfortunately, some mothers are dealing with other challenges like pregnancy discrimination, coping with the challenges at work when they head back to work after their maternity leave. When a mother has support from her workplace, it can positively influence her decision to continue breastfeeding.

It doesn’t cost much to support your breastfeeding mothers in your organization.
There are a few simple steps your company can take, like:

• Ensure that nursing women can take short breaks;
• ensure that nursing women have flexible working hours, so they can pump milk or breastfeed
• provide a proper space in the workplace or offer an alternative solution which is easily accessible.

WELL Community Advisory
I am proud to share that, as of 2020, I am part of the WELL Community Advisory. As an advisor, I will work with the IWBI Standard Development team throughout the year to help ensure that WELLcontinues to align with the latest industry research, meets user needs and raises the bar for healthy, high-performing buildings around the world.

WELL addresses the mothers’ room in WELL Community Concept Feature C09 New Mother Support, this feature offers guidelines to provide working moms with a comfortable and proper mothers’ room.

Supporting All Nursing Mothers
The WELL C09 New Mother Support feature requires the provision of designated lactation rooms with supportive design and amenities, as well as initiatives and educational opportunities that help women initiate and sustain breastfeeding. The C09 New Mother Support feature is also connected to the UN (SDG) Sustainable Development Goals 3: Good Health & Well-Being and Goal 5: Gender Equality.

The WELL New Mother Support feature contains three parts which can be used as a standard for creating comfortable mothers’ room for nursing mothers in the workplace:

Offer Workplace Breastfeeding Support
In addition to designated wellness or lactation rooms, which must be separate from bathrooms, the following are available:

• Paid break times for pumping, at least 15-20 minutes every 2-3 hours;
• One-time coverage or subsidy of at least 50% for purchase of portable breast pump;
• Access to sink, faucet, paper towel dispenser and soap;
• Access to a refrigerator with dedicated and sufficient space for milk storage.

Design Lactation Room
Projects provide at least one designated lactation room that meets the following requirements:

• Is at least 2.1 m × 2.1 m [7 ft x 7 ft] & separate from the bathroom.
• If the room is multi-purpose, it includes clear signage demonstrating its designation as a lactation room.
• Includes at minimum the following: work surface, comfortable chair, min. two electrical outlets, user-operated lock with signage available to indicate occupancy, a system in place for room booking, access to sink, faucet, paper towel dispenser + soap, access to a refrigerator with dedicated and sufficient space for milk storage, dedicated storage space for pumping supplies.
• Provides a calming and comfortable environment, addressing at minimum the following: sound minimization, lighting, thermal comfort, interior design and decorative elements, present in a quantity that meets current and anticipated employee demand.

Promote Breastfeeding Education & Support
At least three of the following are offered to eligible employees at no cost or are subsidized by at least 50% to support and promote breastfeeding:

• Breastfeeding education and behavioural counselling for primary caregiver(s).
• Lactation support.
• Back-to-work lactation counselling to support eligible employees.
• Direct breastfeeding access.
• Travel accommodations are made for breastfeeding women travelling for business.

The impact when implementing WELL Feature C09 New Mother Support
Supportive breastfeeding programs and spaces can help nursing mothers return to work and promote a work environment that prioritizes the health and well-being of women and their children.
Breastfeeding programs can:

• decrease healthcare expenses for mothers and children. The reduced health care costs for breastfed infants translates into lower medical insurance claims for businesses;
• reduce employee absences associated with caring for a sick child. When the child is healthier, breastfeeding employees miss work less often. Your organization is saving one-day absences to take care of the sick child. Mothers who are breastfeeding their child take less one-day absences than mothers with formula-fed children;
• increase productivity and loyalty. Employees whose companies provide lactation support at work consistently report better satisfaction with their jobs, improved morale and higher productivity. This support will ease their transition back to work and enables them to return from maternity leave sooner.
• significantly increase retention among female employees. Employees are more likely to return to work after childbirth when their workplace provides a supportive work environment for continued breastfeeding.

Being able to keep experienced employees after childbirth means lowering or eliminating the costs an organization otherwise would have to invest to hire a temp or to recruit, hire, and train replacement staff, both of which involve additional lost revenue while getting these new staff up to speed.

A study of several companies with lactation programs showed a retention rate of 94.2 per cent.

• Positive employer branding/ PR. Providing a supportive environment for breastfeeding mothers improves your overall company’s brand and enhances the ability to recruit top-notch talent. A lot of companies with support programs receive local, state, and (inter-) national recognition and media attention, a positive boost to recruitment efforts and general goodwill in today’s society!

Time to do the right thing for the future generation and humanize the mothers’ room!
The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) is leading the global movement to transform our buildings and communities in ways that help people thrive. WELL is focused exclusively on the ways that buildings and communities, and everything in them, can improve our comfort, drive better choices, and generally enhance, not compromise, our health and wellness.

Reference
WHO Breastfeeding
Impact of a Breastfeeding-Friendly Workplace on an Employed Mother’s Intention to Continue Breastfeeding After Returning to Work
The business case for Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace Accreditation
UN Sustainable Development Goals
WELL Community Concept Feature C09 New Mother Support
Evaluation of workplace lactation support among employers in two Pennsylvania cities
Various Facebook groups with working mothers who shared their personal stories with me.

Author Bio
Vivian Acquah is a driven woman who likes to talk about the holistic way of sustainable employability, called workplace wellness. For her, this is the way to work on a healthy culture at work.

Becoming a mother inspired Vivian to shift from being a Finance/ IT consultant to becoming a workplace wellness advocate. She made a promise to her son to help make the world a sustainable place by advocating for a healthy workplace where people can thrive.

The coolest thing Vivian has ever accomplished is that she created a healthy cooking show for TV “Cooking Back To Our Roots”. This show was a tribute to her grandmother, who she lost in 2009 due to diabetes type 2.