Why your office needs an inflatable lactation room

• Key Insight: Learn why inflatable nursing pods are reshaping employer lactation strategies.
• What's at Stake: Poor access could undermine compliance, retention, and gender equity metrics.
• Supporting Data: 66% of nursing parents report workplace lactation-space access, per Mamava research.
• Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

Finding or creating the space for working mothers to breastfeed and pump in peace has been a challenge for organizations, but a new inflatable nursing pod product from lactation service provider Mamava is giving employers a ready-to-use solution.   

Mamava's research found that 66% of nursing parents have access to a workplace lactation space, which is required by law for employers with more than 50 employers under the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act. However, one in three said they either didn't have consistent access or they weren't made aware of a suitable space. Mamava's new product aims to solve that persistent gap in accessibility, while making lactation support portable and reliable.  

"The idea for the inflatable pods was for them to be easy to install," says Sascha Mayer, co-founder and chief experience officer at Mamava. "We wanted to create a way to build capacity for lactation in environments that didn't have any room for lactation spaces, or events that didn't have enough and needed a solution for only a couple of hours or days." 

Read more: Most working mothers lack reliable lactation support at work, survey shows

Mamava is best known for their lactation pods, which are semi-permanent private rooms for public spaces and workplaces that don't have any designated space for mothers needing to feed their babies or use their breast pumps. The new inflatable lactation pods offer the same level of privacy and accessibility, but they don't need to be assembled or installed. Organizations can simply rent their desired number of inflatable pods — which are equipped with clasps to keep the doors closed, a magnetic sign to indicate when a pod is in use and electrical plug-ins for pumps — and have them delivered directly. 

The set up and take down of the pods is as easy as plugging them into the wall and waiting the two to three minutes it takes to inflate or deflate. 

"We wanted it to be pretty self-serve," Mayer says. "It was really about making access to lactation space as simple as possible without having to be too high-touch for either our customers, renters or our team at Mamava." 

The pods are also ideal for the new and emerging needs of today's workplaces. As organizations embrace a more hybrid, dispersed work style, many were seeking a more flexible lactation solution for specific days where employees would be in the office that didn't include retrofitting the entire layout. With an inflatable pod, they can be used as much or as little as a company may need, while still visibly prioritizing their population of working moms and providing much-needed support. 

Read more: Change is on the way for lactating parents

"These pods are very visible and were meant to stand out as a very positive gesture, versus something that traditionally may have been kept hidden," Mayer says. "[Employers] are showing that they're putting a very big effort into supporting their employees in all the different aspects of their lives." 

The conversations surrounding working mothers and their post-partum needs should be on-going, and employers should be adaptable and receptive to these new and more flexible solutions in order to create an equitable workplace for all. 

"We're not hiding mothers in a corner anymore," Mayer says. "Instead we're celebrating them and making breastfeeding and pumping visible. The more we do that, the more it gets normalized and, hopefully, the more we're helping working moms meet their breastfeeding goals."