Healthy Savannah wants to encourage lactation spaces
- Healthy Savannah’s “Breastfeeding Welcome Here” initiative encourages businesses and organizations to offer lactation spaces.
- The initiative aims to promote breastfeeding-friendly environments and recognize compliant organizations.
- Several local organizations, including Gateway Community Service Board and the Coastal Health District, already offer dedicated lactation spaces.
Healthy Savannah, formed in 2007, seeks to support a culture of health in the area by creating an environment that makes the healthy choice, the easy choice in all facets of life. Its latest initiative, called “Breastfeeding Welcome Here”, hopes to encourage businesses and organizations to offer lactation spaces for mothers and babies.
Human milk provides several benefits for babies including improved digestive health, reduced risk of chronic illness, cognitive and developmental benefits and immune system support. Moms who have access to pumping at work are less likely to miss work in their infants first year of life, tend to have higher retention rates and lower healthcare and insurance costs as their kids are sick less.
“Breastfeeding is considered an important act of nurture that should be encouraged for the health of both the mother and child,” said Elsie Smalls, Healthy Savannah’s REACH Team Breastfeeding program manager. “Where I focus, it’s about acceptance and understanding, and creating a supportive breastfeeding friendly environment.”
Healthy Savannah is providing door decals along with certificates of recognition to local organizations that currently comply with breastfeeding legislation to celebrate their commitment, but also to promote the benefits of adopting breastfeeding-friendly policies. The Pump Act was signed into law in 2022, and is about making sure that workplaces with 50 or more employees have the opportunity for breastfeeding moms to have a space to pump milk.
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“Our goal with this campaign is to recognize organizations already in compliance with the State’s laws by helping them communicate their breastfeeding-friendly policies with their employees and guests,” said Smalls. “But more importantly, it is to encourage those that have not yet become breastfeeding-friendly workplaces to adopt practices and policies that support this legislation because it is the right thing to do.”
What they’re looking for is a dedicated time and room for mothers to pump — a room with a comfortable a chair, a refrigerator if possible, and an opportunity to breastfeed.
There are already several local organizations that comply and offer dedicated lactation spaces like Gateway Community Service Board, which offers rooms in four of their Chatham County facilities, plus others throughout the region. Other businesses include Oglethorpe Mall, Mitsubishi Power Americas, Inc., all locations of the Coastal Health District in eight counties including the Chatham County Health Department, Grayson Stadium, Enmarket Arena, Chatham County Sheriff’s Office and the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport.
“We hope that five, ten, years from now that the number of locations that have lactation or breastfeeding policies will have increased significantly,” Smalls said. “We don’t know what that might look like, but that’s one way we’ll measure the success of our program, if someone comes to us and says we want to make sure that we offer this to our employees.”
To recognize a business or nonprofit as a breastfeeding-friendly space or workplace, email Healthy Savannah’s Breastfeeding strategy manager, Dr. Elsie Smalls, at [email protected].
Destini Ambus is the general assignment reporter for the Savannah Morning News, covering the municipalities, and community and cultural programs. You can reach her at [email protected]
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