A Place to Pump: A Short History of Lactation Rooms in the Workplace
Student nurses preparing a complex mixture of baby formula in a hospital, 1942. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
By Kate Reggev
As long as there have been human babies, there have been breastfeeding mothers (we mean literally! Having mammary glands helps put us in the class of mammals!). And while women across the globe have worked outside the home throughout history, it was most typical that once they got married and started having children, they left behind that life and instead took on the role of primary caretaker who manages a household. In the cases where women continued to work for pay, it still typically was within the home, doing domestic tasks like laundry, sewing, and other housework for others (although we must add that there were also rare exceptions to this, like women who continued to practice architecture in their own homes, which we discussed here!). This meant that historically, there was no need for a dedicated lactation room — women, whether working or not after having kids, likely breastfed in a comfortable chair, in bed, or wherever there might have been some space in a busy home.
'Good Neighbors', Johannes Christiaan Janson, 1780 - 1810.
So it’s relatively new for women to return to work after starting a family, and especially soon (as in, weeks or months) after having a baby, when they might still be breastfeeding. According to the AIA’s Best Practices for Lactation/Wellness Room Design, “the influx of women in the workplace starting in the 1960s was partly attributable to the development of infant formula.” Infant formula had been invented in the 1860s, but it wasn’t until the 1940s and 1950s that it was considered by physicians and consumers to be a safe and well-known substitute for breastmilk, enabling babies to be fed from sources other than their mothers (or wet nurses) — and permitting mothers to return to work outside the home if desired or needed.
But by the 1980s and 1990s, as women in the workplace started to become commonplace, a small but significant resurgence in breastfeeding also emerged. It’s no coincidence that as formula started to increase in popularity, breastfeeding was increasingly seen as “old fashioned,” uncultured, and most definitely inappropriate in public, let alone the workplace. Yet for women who returned to work and still breastfed their children, they found themselves needing to pump breastmilk throughout the day (we could do a whole other piece on the history of breastpumps, but we’ll just leave you with a cliffhanger here that the first consumer model of the breast pump came on the market in the 1990s — with a pointedly inoffensive, nondescript name: Ameda Purely Yours).
Enter: the bathroom stall (shall we call it the “first” lactation room in the workplace?), often the only private, quiet place in a place of work for women to express milk. “Pumping milk in a restroom is "like telling someone to go eat your lunch in the bathroom," said one woman in a St. Louis Post article in 1993. Or, perhaps more precisely, to make your child’s lunch in the bathroom. Unappealing and unpleasant, either way!
Okay, pause. What does all of this have to do with architecture, or women in architecture? First of all, lactation rooms fall into the category of rooms that are designed specifically for people who identify as women. As a result, they’re subject to similar issues that other spaces that minority or marginalized groups need: they’re often considered unnecessary, or completely forgotten, or at best designed as an afterthought (no lactation room? Why don’t you just go pump in a storage closet or bathroom stall?). What’s more, like laying in hospitals (a.k.a. maternity wards), lactation rooms are subject to similar euphemisms and often referred to as mother’s rooms (is that a clubhouse where moms hang out?!) or wellness rooms (so, yoga and cucumber water?).
Starting in the early 1990s, a few companies began designing and creating dedicated lactation roms. For example, the Missouri Department of Health opened a dedicated lactation room in 1993 (eons ahead of many other workplaces and offices!). The space, a former storage area, appeared to be the first state agency to set up a special place for breast-feeding mothers and was outfitted thanks to a construction budget of under $2,000 plus a $100 mini fridge. A local Missouri legislator at the time called it “an avant-garde thing” — it’s unclear if he was referring to the lactation room or breastfeeding itself (hmm…), but it was a win for women in the workplace either way.
Lactation Room Design in the 2017 edition of Graphic Standards.
Fast forward to 2010, and the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act was amended by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to require employers with 50 employees or more to provide reasonable break times and a private space for nursing mothers to express milk while at work. Employees became entitled to a place to pump at work — other than a bathroom — that was shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public. In 2023, that right was expanded to more employees with the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act (“PUMP Act”).
By 2017, even the educational but somewhat stodgy Architectural Graphic Standards included a layout for a lactation room, although it was limited to an elevation and did not give information about recommended dimensions or technical requirements.
So, what’s in a lactation room? And who developed the recommendations? Generally, a lactation room includes a refrigerator, sink, cleaning supplies, table, and comfortable chair. Recommendations for designing lactation/wellness rooms from the AIA were developed by two female architects, Liz York, FAIA (previously the Chief Sustainability Officer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is a mother of three) and Joyce S. Lee, FAIA (a leader in sustainability and institutional real estate with a focus on cultural facilities). The detailed guide outlines how the room is used (yes, this info is needed! Not everyone inherently knows how a lactation room is used!), recommendations for size, technical requirements, and three sample layouts of varying dimensions and use cases. Important details like a full-length mirror, a coat hook, and counter-height wall outlets are also recommended.
It’s important to note that lactation rooms are needed not only at work, but also out in public (because, hello, moms go places with and without their babies!). Airports have (surprisingly) become one of the most common places for public-facing lactation rooms, in part thanks to Mamava, a company that makes stand-alone lactation spaces (think of them as the “phone booths” found in offices, but without the glass and with everything you need for pumping).
A lactation room sample design from the AIA's Best Practices document.
So, why is this important? Why should we care if this very specialized type of space — that is only used by a portion of women during a relatively short period of their life — even exists? I think there are a few threads here. I think first of all, this is one of the few, if only, spaces designed for women, with design input largely by women. As we previously discussed with maternity wards and “laying in” hospitals, these spaces were designed for women, but by men — people who, even at their most conscientious and thoughtful, would never give birth themselves and be able to approach the design from first-hand experience. That’s not to say that the only way to design a space is to have personal, first-hand knowledge in using it, but certainly getting input from the users is now seen as an important step in equitable design.
The second reason why I think these spaces are so important is because they’re exactly the types of spaces and design solutions that help to keep women in the workforce. It’s known that women often leave the workforce during the period in which they start to have families, and often come back years later — if at all. Returning to work after having children is, of course, a very personal choice, but making it easier for women to navigate the (many) hurdles of parenthood makes it easier.
Harvard Business Review (read: authoritative organization!) published a study in 2019 that looked at how pumping affects women who work full time. Their findings? “Our findings indicate that there are benefits for women and companies when women are given the time and space to pump comfortably.” They found that pumping at work was “enriching” and ultimately that “there was no significant relationship between the amount of time women reported pumping and their productivity at work. These findings suggest that the time women devote to pumping doesn’t decrease their work productivity.” Take that, nay-sayers!
More Research & Resources
Recommendations for designing lactation/wellness rooms, Contributed by Liz York, FAIA and Joyce Lee, FAIA
Breastfeeding in the 21st century: epidemiology, mechanisms, and lifelong effect
Why invest, and what it will take to improve breastfeeding practices?
About Breastfeeding from the CDC
When Companies Support Pumping Breastmilk at Work, Everyone Benefits by Allison S. Gabriel, Sabrina D. Volpone, Rebecca L. MacGowan, Marcus M. Butts, and Christina M. Moran, in Harvard Business Review
Go Beyond the Basics to Support Nursing Parents at Work by Julia Beck, in Harvard Business Review
A History of Breastfeeding Support and Advocacy in Zeros and Fives by Naomi Bar-Yam, Ph.D.