University Times

The Allegheny County Health Department has named the Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) a winner in its 16th annual Breastfeeding Friendly Place Awards. The awards recognize workplaces, public places and other sites away from home that make an extra effort to accommodate breastfeeding mothers.

Instituted as the Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace Awards in 1996, the awards were expanded to include all places offering an environment that makes it easier to breastfeed away from home.

Even though state law expressly allows women to breastfeed in public, the Association of Women in Public Health says one of the keys to extending breastfeeding times is making places outside the home more breastfeeding friendly, including workplaces that go beyond the minimum requirement for an employee to express breast milk under the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act.

Honored in the workplace category for creating a supportive environment, GSPH provides a private office as a lactation room.