Cover Florence Tan (Photo: Khairul Imran)
Florence Tan (Photo: Khairul Imran)
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During her early days at the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA, Florence Tan championed for a lactation room at the space agency
“When I first started at the Goddard Space Flight Center at NASA, smoking was still permitted in the office, which was very male-dominated,” shares Florence Tan, who has been with the American space agency for 38 years. Tan is currently the deputy chief technologist of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and chair of NASA Small Spacecraft Coordination Group.
With few women working at NASA back then, some buildings didn’t even have toilets for women. As more women started working at NASA, the agency began converting some men’s lavatories for women. “Even so, we would have to run down the hall and down a flight of stairs to get to the ladies. But I must commend the managers for listening and being very accommodating,” Tan says.
Also read: The hidden stories of women in NASA
Above Florence Tan fought for a lactation room to be built at NASA
Florence Tan fought for a lactation room to be built at NASA
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In 1994, Tan was pregnant with her first daughter and had planned to breastfeed. “So I requested for a lactation room but the boss said, ‘Oh, this is temporary condition, you can use my office’. I replied that I simply couldn’t,” shares Tan.
Tan was forced to use the public bathroom to pump milk for her baby. She began to notice that there were other pregnant women working at the space agency and felt that it was high time there was a facility that allowed women to safely and hygienically express breast milk. “I decided I was going to make the the lactation room happen. I joined the Women's Advisory Committee and worked together with the members to realise this” she says.
To help her case, Tan started scrounging around for used furniture, medical grade pumps, and a sink; she even wrote a users guide and an orientation plan for new mums, as well as ensured its sustainability by making the women who would be using the room to agree to help maintain and upkeep it.
Five years after the initial request, NASA finally had a lactation room for women. Alas, she never got to enjoy the fruits of her labour. “I had two children in that duration, and nursed the second one for 22 months but never got to use the room, which opened in October 1999,” Tan reveals.
The Lactation Lab, as it was originally called, was a personable space with notice boards, cabinets, and fridges. “I set up sign-in sheets to show that there was consistent demand and created a report on its monthly usage. It was successful even though I almost got the funding pulled a couple of times. That was one of my happiest moments [at NASA],” she says with a smile.
She attributed her determination to her maternal instinct. "If you were a nursing young mother, you would only want the best for your family," she recalls.
Today, every new building at NASA has a lactation room.
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