Olympic Committee Will Provide Breastfeeding Athletes Hotel Rooms

The French committee is taking big strides to make the 2024 Paris Olympic Games more equitable for breastfeeding moms. The organization announced this March that it would provide hotel room accommodations for breastfeeding French athletes. The rooms will be in a hotel close to the 10,000-person athletes’ village in Saint-Ouen, north of Paris.

The accommodations come after several French athletes, including judo star Clarisse Agbegnen, advocated for the committee to take the needs of new mothers more seriously. During the Olympics, children are traditionally banned from entering the athletes’ village, where participants and coaches stay for the duration of the Games.

In the past, this has meant that breastfeeding athletes have to be separated from their children or have to pay for their accommodations themselves. In a journey that already asks so much of parents competing monetarily, from childcare to transportation, accommodations can be the last straw preventing parents from being able to make their Olympic run.

The new accommodation by the French Olympic committee means mothers can use the room to sleep next to their babies, breastfeed their infants or share the room with their partners. There will also be a special social area for families. “It’s unprecedented and it’s something we want to become permanent, so that’s not a one-off because it’s the Olympics in Paris,” noted French Olympic Committee secretary general Astrid Guyart, according to Women’s Health.

Here’s to more decisions made with mothers in mind!