Traveling moms don’t have it easy. There’s a lot of coordination that goes into plane traveling with young children or a newborn. You have to think about how you’re going to maneuver the airports (listed in our airport nursing rooms locator) and get your children from point A to point B seamlessly. In a perfect world it would be seamless but moms often have to deal with luggage, strollers, car seats for the plane, entertaining children or keeping a newborn calm during a flight, stares and comments from less than understanding passengers and then the whole fiasco de-boarding. But what if you are a nursing mom? Traveling with kids or not if a mom is nursing she will also need to coordinate time to breastfeed or breast pump.
According to a study done by Intrepid Travel in 2012, 63% of travelers are women between the ages of 25 and 39. And according to Forbes 85% of consumer purchases and 80% of travel decisions are made by women. 
Are airports ready to accommodate moms? Recently legislation created by Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth (Illinois) proposed for all airports to have nursing room accommodations for moms by 2016. After further research and survey done by Moms Pump Here LLC we found that many airports are still missing the grade on nursing room accommodations. Many still believe that a bathroom or family bathrooms are nursing rooms. Ideally, if an adult will not eat in a bathroom nor prepare a meal on a toilet why would we subject our babies to this? With fecal matter dispersed into the air by flushing toilets and germs a bathroom is not where a mom should be expressing milk.
Every nursing room, mother’s lounge, suite or parents room must have the following minimum requirements to be considered proper accommodations for nursing mothers:
• Privacy
• A comfy chair
• Table/changing table
• Outlet
• Trash disposal
Additional amenities can include:
• A nearby bathroom
• Sink
• Play area
• TV
• Decor
Recently we’ve encountered and contacted airports that have mislabeled bathrooms as nursing rooms or baby care centers. For example, Salt Lake City Airport in Utah had three family restrooms labeled as infant care rooms with toilets right near seating and Reagan International Airport labeled a toilet stall in a bathroom a nursing room. Another culprit was Baltimore Washington International Airport. It does not have a dedicated nursing station as their website stated. They turned out to be bathrooms labeled nursing stations.
Currently in the Moms Pump Here Nursing Room Locator App and website there are over 200 major airports listed (over 1,500 locations total in the USA, Canada and Australia). Nursing mothers participate actively by submitting locations to our database and providing reviews of locations they have checked into. Each location is vetted for the safety of nursing moms by the Moms Pump Here team.
Nursing mothers are encouraged to do research ahead of traveling into an airport and share their experiences with the Moms Pump Here community. Below is a list of US based airports we surveyed as meeting Moms Pump Here’s minimal requirements for nursing room spaces:
1. San Francisco International Airport
2. Newark Liberty International Airport
3. JFK Airport
5. Minneapolis St. Paul Airport
7. Dayton International Airport
8. Nashville International Airport
9. Buffalo Niagara International Airport
10. Birmingham Shuttlesworth International Airport
11. Philadelphia International Airport
12. Coastal Carolina Regional Airport
13. Greater Rochester International Airport
14. Pittsburgh International Airport
16. Billings Logan International Airport
17. Jacksonville International Airport
18. General Mitchell International Airport
19. Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
20. Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport
21. Colorado Springs Airport (Maybe Family Rest Room or Not)
22. Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport - Adams Field Airport (Maybe, It says there's also Toiletry)
23. Oklahoma City Airport - Will Rogers World Airport
24. Orlando International Airport (Only Recent in October 2015)
26. Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport (Guam)
27. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport
28. Indianapolis International Airport
29. Logan International Airport
30. Pensacola Gulf Coast Airport
31. Dane County Regional Airport
32. Akron-Canton Regional Airport
33. Chicago O'Hare International Airport
34. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport
35. Mineta San Jose International Airport
36. Seattle Tacoma International Airport
37. Chicago Midway International Airport
39. George Bush Intercontinental Airport
40. Burlington Vermont Airport
41. Long Island MacArthur Airport
42. Albany International Airport
*Out of 357 Major and Regional US airports total, ONLY the 40 listed above actually have a space that qualifies as dedicated nursing mothers room/lounge.
