HANCEVILLE, Ala. – Wallace State Community College held a ribbon cutting Thursday, Aug. 1, in the School of Nursing and Center for Science to officially open a Mother’s Lounge that nursing mothers can utilize for privacy and comfort when using a breast pump. The event came during the first day of World Breastfeeding Week.
Madison Hospital sponsors the room, providing furniture, supplies and a refrigerator.
“For World Breastfeeding Week, which starts to today, we wanted to do a sustainable project that would help our community,” said Kristine Taff, a lactation specialist at Madison Hospital. “We are excited to be here and establish this Mother’s Lounge and to partner with Wallace State in this gift.”
The lounge, located on the third floor of the School of Nursing and Center for Science, is open to all students, faculty, staff and visitors to campus who may need to use the facilities.
Nursing instructor and Association of Nursing Students sponsor Shea Mobley said there has been a need for such a facility for faculty, staff and students. Since the building opened in 2014, Mobley said there have been seven children born to faculty and more to students who could have benefited from the room.
In the past, she said faculty would improvise to create privacy by covering windows on the doors to their office or turning away from the door. Students, she said, have gone to their cars in between classes to pump breast milk, keeping coolers and ice packs on hand to store the milk until they could go home for the day.
“Currently we have five or six women in nursing classes that are pregnant and due this spring,” Mobley said. “Unfortunately, we’ve had some students in the past who, getting busy and the long days, were not able to continue to pump any longer.”
The Wallace State Association of Nursing Students organization spearheaded the project and will maintain the room. Mobley said the club is participating in Healthy People 2020, the federal government’s prevention agenda for building a healthier nation. Part of the agenda is to increase the proportion of infants who are breastfed exclusively through six months and to increase the number of employers who have worksite lactation support programs.
“I want to say a special thank you to you for investing in Wallace State and our students and our faculty,” said Dr. Vicki Karolewics, president of Wallace State Community College. “Our data shows that our student body is almost 69 percent female, so not only are you supporting our students to allow them to remain in college and nurse their babies, but supporting healthy babies, too through breastfeeding. So, thank you so much for that.”
Any mothers wishing to use the Mother’s Lounge can go to the desk of the Nursing Administration office to request the key to the room. For more information about the Mother’s Lounge, contact Shea Mobley at 256-352-8068 or shea.mobley@wallacestate.edu.
Registration is currently underway at Wallace State for Fall 2019 through Aug. 22, with classes beginning Aug. 19 for Regular and Flex Term I and Oct. 9 for Flex Term II. Visit www.wallacestate.edu or call 256-352-8000.
