BY JUDY LIN-EFTEKHAR
UCLA Today Staff

Women faculty members, staff and students who want to provide their infants with the benefits of breast milk can now do so at two lactation centers that recently opened in A272A Murphy Hall and 1268 Franz Hall. The centers offer private booths where nursing mothers from all over campus can come to set up their own breast pumps to express breast milk.

The centers are a welcome improvement for nursing mothers, many of whom previously used bathrooms for this purpose.

"Women think it's wonderful," said Cathy Tsao, director of the Infant Development Program in the Department of Psychology, who created the center at Franz Hall. "There are a lot of women on campus who don't have access to a private office, and this is a very private function. These centers are more user-friendly."

The Murphy Hall center was set up by Tina Oakland, director of the Center for Women and Men. Facilities Management donated help with design and construction of both centers.

Pablo Picasso

Extensive research has documented the benefits of breast milk for infants, who gain improved immunity to allergies and asthma, among other conditions, and for nursing mothers, at lower risk of some breast and ovarian cancers. As employees, nursing mothers miss less work because their infants are sick less often advocates point out.

Under a new state law, employers are now required to provide appropriate space and a reasonable amount of break time for working mothers to express milk.

The Franz Hall center is open weekdays, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and the Murphy Hall center is open weekdays, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For more information or to get involved in a working group that hopes to create a more ambitious campuswide lactation program, call Linda Lange of the School of Public Health at (310) 825-7356 or e-mail her at lolange@ucla.edu.