The Invisible Labor Inside America’s Lactation Rooms

The Longworth House lactation suite is stately. Furnished with wood paneling and a patrician window curtain, it fits a refrigerator, a sink, a TV, and pumping stations equipped with hospital-grade breast pumps, armchairs, shelves, hangers, tissues, and wipes. The suite—one of several created at the U.S. House of Representatives starting in 2007 under the impetus of Nancy Pelosi, the first female House speaker—is a space of privilege.