Brian Coddington, 509.625.6563
Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 10:58 a.m.
Mothers who work at Spokane’s City Hall will find feeding their babies a bit easier with the new addition of a Mother’s Room.
The room was completed this week and is designed to support female employees who have babies, return to work and are breastfeeding or breast pumping.
With more than 500 women working for the city, many are mothers who have babies during their career and return to work wanting the opportunity to continue to provide the best nutrition, breast milk, to their infants through the first year of life.
“Our working culture doesn’t always make it easy on moms and babies and we want to support new and growing families,” said Council Member Candace Mumm. “A Mother’s Room provides a private space for mothers to breastfeed or breast pump which will make the transition back to work much easier. Supporting new moms returning to work is not only the right thing to do, but it can also help us attract and keep talented young women on our city workforce.”
Employers that provide breastfeeding support programs in the workplace consistently report improved morale, better satisfaction with their jobs and higher productivity. Other employer benefits include increased retention rates of working moms following the birth of a baby and recruitment of top-notch females in the workplace.
“We’re hoping the addition of this Mother’s Room will allow our employees to continue to breastfeed throughout their child’s first year of life”, said Council member Karen Stratton. “These simple improvements are needed to support these moms by giving them options. We need to be making nourishing and nursing our babies easier, not harder.”
The new Mother’s Room is located on the 4th floor of City Hall and is designed to accommodate up to two users at a time. The room will offer information and education resources to new parents about the benefits of nursing. Council Members Candace Mumm and Karen Stratton, in conjunction with the Gender and Pay Equity Committee and City Administration, worked to establish this family friendly space.
On average 90% of Washington State mothers choose to nurse their babies and only 20% of Washington State mothers exclusively breastfeed for the first six-months. Breastfeeding has well- documented health benefits for infants, children and mothers.
