Amtrak is adding private lactation pods to five of its major train stations after two mothers successfully petitioned for such spaces.
Lacey Kohlmoos and Samantha Matlin from Philadelphia started the Care2 online petitions, specifically calling for "clean, safe" lactation spaces at the 30th Street Station in Philly and the Union Station in New York City.
The call-to-action came after Kohlmoos was reminded of a memory during National Breastfeeding Month of when she traveled between the two stations and failed to find a comfortable room to pump.
She ended up pumping in a Starbucks bathroom, where she was humiliated after being repeatedly interrupted by knocking customers.
Kohlmoos and Matlin's petitions gathered more than 64,000 signatures, and Care2 says its members sent Amtrak over 50,000 emails calling for action.
Now, Amtrak is installing Mamava lactation rooms at the stations in Washington DC., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago and New York City. The project should be completed by the fall, Kohlmoos told All the Moms.
See what the lactation pod will look like:
How the call for nursing rooms started
Kohlmoos was taking a trip from Philadelphia to DC last June when her son was seven months old. She had to pump every two to three hours to avoid leakage, pain or mastitis, an extremely painful infection she had previously experienced.
But the bathrooms at the station weren't sanitary, nor did they have outlets. There was nowhere to go but the single-person bathroom at Starbucks.
“In the 15 minutes it took for me to express my milk, there must have been at least 10 knocks on the door,” Kohlmoos said.
“The whole experience was embarrassing, stressful, and rage-inducing. But I thought, just like so many other new moms, that's just the way it is. New normal.”
When National Breastfeeding Month came around that August, the memory returned. Kohlmoos said she was inspired and told All the Moms she thought to herself:
“Hey, wait a minute. This doesn’t have to be the new normal.”
Putting her activism, career skills to work
As an online strategist for Care2, Kohlmoos decided she knew how to turn petitions into full-fledged campaigns.
She worked with Matlin, and the two went about talking with other mothers, organizing email campaigns and eventually a Twitter spree, where the petitioners sent about 2,500 tweets to Amtrak.
As a psychologist, Matlin had no prior experience with petitioning, but she told All the Moms her understanding of how health promotion for children and families benefits entire communities helped their cause.
"I think the ability for so many people to connect on this ... cultural shift of how we support working mothers" and therefore working families, Matlin said, is incredibly powerful.
No blame; only awareness
Kohlmoos and Matlin both said they're excited Amtrak has stepped up and initiated change. Their larger hope is that eventually they'll live in a world where someone couldn't imagine a train station without a lactation facility.
But they admitted to never having thought about nursing rooms before becoming mothers.
"We're not blaming anyone," Matlin said.
But they do wish Amtrak would reach out to them.
They say Amtrak has worked directly with Mamava to install the nursing pods, and they would like to be involved in the community and media outreach to promote the breastfeeding spaces.
"It touches so many pieces," Matlin said. "I love that Amtrak can be part of the solution for how we change the culture..."
