If you’re a nursing mom, this is some seriously great news.
Thanks to new legislation, nursing moms will have a quiet place to nurse, pump, and change their littles at major US airports. A few minutes of quiet time to calm and connect with your baby in the midst of travel chaos can be a gamechanger.
The Friendly Airports for Mothers Act (FAM), which was lumped into the recent five-year reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, “Commercial airports will be required to provide lactation rooms at each passenger terminal building of the airport,” reports USA Today.
Many airports already have such rooms, whether they’re called a mother’s room, nursing pods or breastfeeding stations. They are designed to give moms a place to nurse a child or pump breast milk. Each of the 2017 Top 10 U.S. airports by passengers has at least one such station.
Before the FAM act, airports added nursing rooms at their own discretion. Now, not only are all large- and medium-sized airports required to provide them at each terminal, there are other provisions, too.
The lactation areas must:
- Be available to the public
- Be behind security
- Be shielded from view and free from intrusion
- Have a door that can be locked
- Includes a place to sit, a table or other flat surface and an electrical outlet
- Be accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities, including individuals who use wheelchairs
- Not be in a bathroom.
In August, Bush Intercontinental Airport announced the opening of four private breastfeeding rooms.
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