LAUSR

Many potential barriers stand in the way of any new parent’s ability to achieve their breastfeeding goals. For student parents working toward a postsecondary degree, added challenges— from long classes with inadequate break time to limited legal protections—can be insurmountable. No definitive research exists comparing postsecondary student rates of breastfeeding initiation, duration, or exclusivity to those of non-students (Bostick et al., 2016), but the unique challenges facing student parents may contribute to lower rates than the general population. Researchers have demonstrated that for employed parents, returning to work after birth has a negative impact on breastfeeding exclusivity and duration (Kozhimannil et al., 2016; Attanasio et al, 2013). Returning to school also typically means significant time spent away from the infant, an effect that may be magnified by limited legal protections surrounding parental leave for students. While the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (2006) affords eligible employees 12 weeks of parental leave after birth, there are no specific federal guidelines governing the amount of leave that students are permitted to take before returning to classes. The result is that many students return within weeks—sometimes days—of delivery. These early weeks are vital for establishing breastfeeding, and length of parental leave for the birthing parent is closely associated with duration of breastfeeding (Visness & Kennedy, 1997). While amendments added to the Fair Labor Standards Act (2010) during 2010, as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010), require employers to provide eligible employees with “reasonable” break time and a private place other than a bathroom to express, unless a student works for the university and is eligible for this protection as an employee, this requirement does not extend to students. Limited federal protections for a student’s right to breastfeed are provided by Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 (2018) and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 1978 (Amendments to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) but do not approach the level of protections provided for employees. Additional challenges unique to students identified in the literature include limited awareness of existing legal protections (Bai & Dinour, 2019; Anderson et al., 2018; Alb et al., 2017; Bai et al., 2014), disparities in access to a private place to express between faculty, staff, and students (Dinour et al., 2014), the logistics of having to carry a breast pump around campus and find a way to safely store human milk (Bai et al., 2016), and sensitivity to perceived faculty and peer support for breastfeeding on campus (Natan et al., 2018; Bai et al., 2016). To better understand how challenges like these affect student parents on our campus, the authors conducted focus group conversations with students centered on the supports and challenges they encountered as breastfeeding student parents. The results of these conversations, along with a discussion about the unique challenges in meeting student lactation needs at a large public university, recent actions taken to improve lactation support on our campus, and the ethical aspects of this issue, are presented below.