In 2015, nearly four months after giving birth to her son, Christiane Lafleche enrolled at Carleton University to complete her master’s in social work.
With a merit scholarship that covered the full cost of her two-year tuition, she said she felt privileged to continue her studies without worrying about having enough money to pay for school. Having her husband at home caring for their baby also bought her some relief.
Lafleche wasn’t alone as a student mother. A 2011 study in the Canadian Journal of Higher Education found that from 1976 to 2005, between 11 and 16 per cent of post-secondary students had at least one child.
Navigating being a mother and student turned out to be more challenging than Lafleche expected. From not having access to accommodations for mothers on campus to adjusting to her new identity as a mother, Lafleche said she had a difficult experience.
“I thought that people would be totally understanding and supportive, but I think like most people, before you become a parent, you have no idea what you’re getting into,” Lafleche said. “I think I had a little bit of rose-coloured glasses about the experience.”
A challenging experience
In her first year, Lafleche took an intensive course that was offered during the first week of classes. The course ran from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with two 15-minute breaks and an hour for lunch.
As a new mom, she said she needed to pump her breast milk frequently to keep her milk supply high and have enough milk for her baby once she gets home.
According to the Canadian Breastfeeding Foundation, regular pumping also helps prevent health issues such as mastitis, a risk Lafleche said she was concerned about. The foundation categorizes mastitis as an infection that occurs when the breasts are not completely drained and become inflamed.
Lafleche contacted her professor before the course began to ask for extra time to pump but was unsuccessful.
“I had asked the professor via email if I could have a bit of a longer break because I needed to pump milk and the professor said no,” she said. “I wasn’t allowed to have a longer break.”
Lafleche decided to use her lunchtime to pump, but this led to another challenge—finding a comfortable and private space to pump on campus.
The need for lactation rooms
While the Ontario Human Rights Commission protects women’s rights to breastfeed in public spaces, some mothers like Lafleche prefer to have more privacy.
Eventually, Lafleche reached out to the graduate administrator of the social work program and they reserved a room for her in Dunton Tower to pump. But the room was too far from her classroom in Leeds House, so she had to run between locations.
“[I] didn’t even have time to eat,” Lafleche said. “It felt so stressful and unpleasant.”
As a result, Lafleche said the next day she ended up having to pump in one of the dorm laundry rooms which was uncomfortable since young women and men would enter the room.
“I just felt very exposed,” Lafleche said.
She was not alone in her experience. Lafleche recalled seeing a mother recovering from a C-section struggle to go from the classroom to the accommodation room as well.
The Ontario Public Health Association (OPHA) Breastfeeding Promotion Workgroup explains facilities for breastfeeding and pumping need to be clean and private, equipped with comfortable chairs with supportive arms for breastfeeding and small tables, chairs and electrical outlets for expressing breast milk. Appropriate signs that indicate the designated room is in use are also required.
The Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) at Carleton provided a space where Lafleche could pump, but she said the lack of privacy still persisted. She added that having GSA’s support helped her in her experience.
Chichi Ayalogu, current GSA president and mother, said the association plans to work with the Dedicated Access Fund Committee (DAF) to create designated nursing rooms on campus. According to their online profile, DAF was created in 1991 to make existing buildings and facilities on campus more accessible.
Last year, the GSA proposed a project with the committee to offer baby changing stations in washrooms across Carleton’s campus. The GSA is also one of the few facilities on campus with a baby changing station, Ayalogu said.
“This is something I noticed was missing. Every time I would come on campus, I did not have anywhere to change my baby’s diaper,” Ayalogu said.
Changes on campus
In response to Lafleche’s experience, Carleton wrote in an email to the Charlatan that the school aims “to provide an inclusive environment for everyone in its community. Carleton’s Womxn’s Centre provides a quiet space on campus for breastfeeding.”
The Womxn’s Centre, run by the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA), provides a safe and comfortable space for students who wish to breastfeed or pump. Located on the third floor of the University Centre, the space is fully equipped with desks, sofas, pillows and electrical outlets.
A sign is posted on the door to let people know when a mother is breastfeeding, according to Yumna Khan and Aminah Derman, the centre’s programming and administrative coordinators. The centre also offers free hygiene products such as pads and tampons, along with baby diapers.
The coordinators said they plan to continue mother’s support groups this year that the centre started offering last year but were put on hold due to the pandemic. The support groups include monthly themes such as self-care for mothers.
“At this point when you have a child, most of the mothers’ priority is given to that child,” Khan said. “We want to bring back priority to mothers.”
The Colonel By Child Care Centre is also located on Carleton’s campus and provides programming for infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
Meeting the needs of breastfeeding mothers
The need to accommodate nursing mothers exists beyond the university setting.
Alanna Bamber, an industrial design Carleton alumna, designed a public breastfeeding seat as part of a capstone project during her final year. She named it the Sanctuary Public Breastfeeding Seat.
The seat features a high armrest, a padded sidewall to reduce distractions for both the mom and the baby, a reclined padded backrest and a tabletop surface for personal belongings. It also only has an armrest on one side to cater to larger infants and toddlers and to allow the breastfeeder to still participate in the social environment.
Bamber worked with the Canada Science and Technology Museum to make it an inclusive seat that meets the needs of breastfeeding mothers. The seat was selected along with another student’s work to be used at the museum’s central hub.
Bamber’s mother, who was a breastfeeding coach in the 1980s, inspired her project. In the 1980s, accommodations were scarce and the social stigma against public breastfeeding was prevalent.
Bamber said she conducted primary research by going to the museum to determine what types of seating were accessible.
“One thing that I was hearing a lot was that there wasn’t a ton of space to breastfeed,” Bamber said. “Often if [those who breastfeed] didn’t have the opportunity to breastfeed, they had to leave the museum early.”
Through a survey Bamber conducted on her Facebook page, she said the biggest concern for a breastfeeding seat was comfort. Other concerns included making others uncomfortable, lack of arm support on chairs and distractions.
Working on this project opened her mind to the discrimination nursing mothers and women still face, she said.
“Our society is becoming really progressive in a lot of ways in terms of gender identity and sexual orientation, but then with this idea of breastfeeding, we’re still kind of stuck in this mindset of like ‘Oh no, a breast!’” Bamber said.
Motherhood and mental health
Pamela Green, a registered psychotherapist at Green Psychotherapy and Wellness, said a lack of accommodations for new mothers can have a negative impact on their entry into motherhood.
“It’s so important for new moms and their mental health to not only have access to support but also access to services because that really impacts them mentally,” Green said. “They’re entering into this journey, which for many, especially first-time moms, there’s a lot of fear and anxiety.”
For student mothers, balancing studies while raising a child can take away from the enjoyment of being a new parent and potentially lead to depression, Green said.
“There can be a lot of conflict for moms in that position, feeling like they don’t have a choice on how they’d like to parent,” Green said.
Shaming women for breastfeeding or pumping in public spaces is another factor that affects a mother’s mental health and ability to adjust to motherhood. Green said making mothers feel like they are an inconvenience for others can cause them to make alternative choices they are not comfortable with such as dropping out of school.
Green encourages mothers to recognize that the shaming is a result of other people’s discomfort or lack of available services to make breastfeeding possible. For positive experiences, mothers need to feel supported in public spaces, Green said.
Lafleche said in her second year, she received support from her peers and instructors, some of whom were mothers themselves. But not meeting the needs of mothers makes it difficult for them to complete their studies, she said.
Providing proper accommodations for mothers is about asking different students what they need to be comfortable, Lafleche said.
“Why are we making it so much harder for them?”
Featured graphic by Sara Mizannojehdehi.
