(g) the right of a mother to breastfeed her child in any place of public resort, accommodation, assemblage, or amusement.

Photo by Jason Anfinsen

The law goes into effect in late July, 90 days after today. It adds on to the existing Washington laws that exempt breastfeeding and expressing breast milk from indecent exposure, and allow employers to call themselves “infant-friendly” if they meet certain requirements.

This is the kind of breastfeeding law I like to see in place because it creates an actionable right. Richard Roesler of the Spokesman-Review noted:

Complaints would be investigated by the state Human Rights Commission. Based on results involving similar laws in Vermont and Hawaii, the commission estimates that it will field 4-5 complaints a year.

The number of complaints per year surprises me. Come to think of it, I am not sure whether I expected the number of complaints to be lower or higher. I suppose as the law goes into effect, I would like to see a higher number of complaints as breastfeeding women become aware of and exercise their rights. Then I would like to see the number of complaints go down as businesses come into compliance with the law.

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Wisconsin

On February 24, 2009, the Wisconsin Senate passed the Right to Breastfeed Act (SB 16). If it becomes law, it would affirm a woman’s right to breastfeed in any public or private location where the mother is otherwise authorized to be, and would provide a penalty of up to $200 for interfering with that right. The organization Wisconsin Family Action had been pushing for the senators to vote against the bill or to add a “modesty amendment” requiring mothers “to be discreet (e.g. use a blanket or a towel) to preserve modesty.” A law requiring women to be discreet or modest would be a setback for breastfeeding women! Those terms are terribly subjective and would make nursing women feel less protected rather than more! Fortunately the Senate Amendment 1 that passed was not a modesty clause. Here is the text with the original line struck through and the amendment added:

253.16 Right to breast−feed. A mother may breast−feed her child in any public or private location where the mother is otherwise authorized to be. No person may interfere with the right of a mother to breast−feed her child as provided in this may prohibit a mother from breast−feeding her child as provided in this section.

I would rather have seen the bill passed as originally written, because the amended bill appears to open the door for someone to ask a mother to cover up: “I wasn’t prohibiting her from breastfeeding, I just asked her to cover up or move to a different location!”

Governor Jim Doyle has said he will sign the bill into law if it passes the Assembly. Currently it has been referred to the Assembly committee on Public Safety. I hope Wisconsin mothers and other breastfeeding advocates keep a close eye on this bill and urge the members of the Assembly to pass the bill as originally written, or at least pass the current version without any modesty amendment!

North Dakota

Unfortunately the North Dakota Senate passed a bill with a modesty clause on February 18. The relevant portion of Senate Bill 2344 says:

Right to breastfeed. If the woman acts in a discreet and modest manner, a woman may breastfeed her child in any location, public or private, where the woman and child are otherwise authorized to be.

Here’s my really insightful one-word analysis of this text: YIKES! Who gets to decide what would be “discreet” and “modest”? This bill isn’t a “right to breastfeed” it’s a “right for people to police breastfeeding mothers”! It screams for people to interfere with breastfeeding. “Excuse me ma’am, but you’re not being discreet according to my standards and I want you to put a blanket over yourself and your baby or get out of here!”

The bill now goes to the House. North Dakotans need to contact their legislators and urge them to pass the bill without the modesty clause. North Dakota is one of four states without breastfeeding legislation on the books, but it would be better to remain one of those four states than to pass the bill as it stands! There is a Facebook group “Got Mom’s Milk? in North Dakota” that discusses the legislation and keeps track of some of the contacts with state legislators.

Washington

Washington state is also contemplating a bill to protect breastfeeding. House Bill 1596 treats breastfeeding as a civil right:

(g) the right of a mother to breastfeed her child in any place of public resort, accommodation, assemblage, or amusement.

Now that’s more like it! It’s a strong bill that would create an enforceable right, unlike many other breastfeeding laws. Under such a law, if a woman were a victim of discrimination for breastfeeding, she could file a civil action to enjoin further discrimination and recover damages and attorney’s fees.

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Chapter 14. Employee Breaks
Sec. 1. As used in this chapter, “employer” means a person or entity that employs twenty-five (25) or more employees.
Sec. 2. (a) To the extent reasonably possible, an employer shall provide a private location, other than a toilet stall, where an employee can express the employee’s breast milk in privacy during any period away from the employee’s assigned duties.
(b) To the extent reasonably possible, an employer shall:
(1) provide a refrigerator or other cold storage space for keeping milk that has been expressed; or
(2) allow the employee to provide the employee’s own portable cold storage device for keeping milk that has been expressed until the end of the employee’s work day.
(c) Except in cases of willful misconduct, gross negligence, or bad faith, an employer is not liable for any harm caused by or arising from either of the following that occur on the employer’s premises:
(1) The expressing of an employee’s breast milk.
(2) The storage of expressed milk.

Inside INdiana Business quotes Senator Simpson as saying:

This legislation benefits not only mothers and their children. It also benefits employers because women with infants are the fastest growing section of the labor force and breastfeeding typically causes lower healthcare costs for the mother and child. I’m pleased to see the governor agreed and signed it into law.

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Michigan Senator Gretchen Whitmer has introduced Senate Bill 275 which would provide an exemption for nursing mothers from jury duty. If enacted as written the law would state:

A nursing mother may claim exemption from jury service for the period during which she is nursing her child and shall be exempt upon making the request if she provides a letter from a physician or a certified nurse midwife verifying that she is a nursing mother.

The bill is scheduled for hearing in the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, March 13, 2007, at 12:30 p.m. in 210 Farnum Building (at the corner of Capitol and Allegan). Michigan mothers interested in testifying at the hearing can contact the senator’s aide Patrick Crandell at (517) 373-1734.

As a Michigan mother myself I’m very happy to see this legislation introduced. This policy is already in place in some Michigan courts on an informal basis. I was called for jury duty when I was nursing my first child. I asked the court for an exemption and luckily the court was sympathetic. A friend who was not breastfeeding was not so lucky. She was merely given an extension to allow her time to find child care for her son. Frankly I think that the law should exempt all stay at home mothers of young children. It would be awfully difficult for a mother to arrange temporary full-time child care for an indeterminate number of days, and awfully traumatic for a child to be required suddenly to adapt to such care. It’s not like a planned transition to day care. I guess this is yet another advantage of breastfeeding!

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They say providing such benefits are as much bottom-line decisions as altruistic ones: They help retain good employees and maintain a happier, less-stressed workforce that’s more productive and creative.

When the Southfield branch of Meadowbrook Insurance Group constructed its new building two years ago, the company put in two lactation rooms equipped with couches and comfortable chairs for new mothers to pump their milk in privacy and store the bottles of milk in the refrigerator. . . .

“In order for us to retain quality people who already have a proven track record, we need to help them balance their work and personal lives,” said Sue Cubbin, vice president of human resources. “It’s a win-win. We’ll have a more focused employee.”

It means so much more coming from an employer than from me. I lamented the lack of employer support when legislation protecting mothers in the workplace failed to pass in Wyoming (a watered-down version of the bill passed to exempt breastfeeding from the indecent exposure law). There’s still hope for a bill pending in the Oregon legislature. I hope Oregon businesses are listening up and learning the benefits of supporting breastfeeding mothers!

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Update: Please spread the word! The daycare in question is Rainbow Child Development Center in Plymouth, Michigan. You can contact the director Mary Buchin by email at: Plymouth@RainbowChildDevelopment.com or by phone at
(734) 455-2761. Rainbow Child Development Centers has locations throughout Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and New Jersey. To contact the national management, call (800) 90-LEARN or use the on-line contact form. Those of you in Michigan can contact your state representative and senator and urge them to introduce and support legislation protecting a woman’s right to breastfeed (and a child’s right as well)!

A Michigan mother wrote to me asking for help to spread the word about change needed in the Michigan law. Her call for change stems from a distressing experience she had at her son’s daycare. Katy writes:

This January, I was told that I was no longer permitted to breastfeed my twenty-six month old son in his room at daycare, although I had been nursing him at pick-up and drop-off without incident since he started daycare at three months. I immediately called the licensing board, which confirmed the daycare’s interpretation of the regulations. Following the recommendation of the local La Leche leader, I wrote a letter to the director, in which I explained my objections to the new regulation and included citations supporting the importance of breastfeeding past infancy. Nursing in the alternate location did not work, and the director did not respond to my requests for explanation. When I talked to the director’s supervisor, all I was told was that they had a right to make rules as they saw fit. After several days, I tried nursing him in his classroom again. The lead teacher ran to tell the director, and the other teachers evacuated the children. Here is the regulation that they cited:

“(a) The center shall support and accommodate breastfeeding.
(b) The center shall have a designated place set aside to accommodate mothers and their children who are breastfeeding.”

They are interpreting “designated place” to mean only the designated place, and decided that a room with two nursing toddlers (mine and another one) would no longer be designated. I feel that “designated place” should mean that they need to have a comfortable location available, not that that should be the only place to breastfeed.

I am sharing this incident for two reasons. First, I want other working mothers to know that this daycare chain, Rainbow Child Development Center, especially the center in Plymouth, Michigan, is not friendly to breastfeeding toddlers.

Secondly, although I have since switched daycare providers, I am still appalled that it is legal for a daycare to prevent a child from nursing wherever he or she needs to. If any of you feel the same way, please write to your legislators! I have a sample letter available if you want it. Especially since Wisconsin is currently considering legislation to legally protect breastfeeding in all public locations, now could be a good time to lobby our legislators to extend the same protections to Michigan women.

If you want more information or a copy of the sample letter to send to legislators, please contact Katy directly at “katykay at gmail dot com” (substitute the appropriate symbols for the email address). I contacted the daycare for a response and received no reply. Specifically I’d like to know whether the daycare’s concern revolved around the fact that the child was age two, given that he had breastfed in the classroom for several months prior to that incident. Did it really evacuate the children (Katy explains that the children were asked to go to the Gross Motor area to play when normally they would not be there at that time and the space was already occupied by another class)? Anyone else think that that disruption would be more traumatic for the children than seeing a mother breastfeed her child?

I really don’t understand why the center would object to a mother nursing in the classroom. I understand that some people are prudish and narrow-minded when it comes to breastfeeding in public, but I expect more from a childcare provider whose main concern should be the welfare of the child. If breastfeeding helps a child transition happily to and from daycare each day, that should be encouraged, not vilified. Other children in the room likely paid it no mind, and even if they did, all it requires is a simple statement that the child is nursing and leave it at that.

Does anyone else have an experience to share about nursing at daycare? Are you aware of any push for legislation in Michigan? Currently the state law exempts breastfeeding from the public nudity statute. Breastfeeding may also be taken into consideration in child custody cases. A search of the bills currently introduced in the state legislature did not reveal any measures pertaining to breastfeeding. What do you say, lactivists?

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That legislation is sure to receive a boost from yesterday’s nurse-in at the Berkshire Mall in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. Nearly 200 people turned out to support nursing mother Leigh Bellini after she was harassed by mall security for breastfeeding in the mall’s center court. The nurse-in received excellent news coverage across the nation. You can read articles covering the story from the local paper the Reading Eagle, KNBC in Los Angeles, CA, CBS 3 in Philadelphia, PA and watch video coverage from WFMZ in Allentown, PA. While Pennsylvania state law does not explicitly address breastfeeding, one of the articles mentions that local legislation is currently being introduced in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to protect the right of women to breastfeed in public.

Pennsylvania mothers who want to do more to support breastfeeding can contact the Pennsylvania Breastfeeding Coalition or the very active group Birth Without Boundaries. Birth Without Boundaries has established “a legislative alert e-list — for anyone interested in working together specifically on issues relating to breastfeeding including the legal protection of mothers’ and childrens’ rights to breastfeed wherever and whenever they want to, cases of breastfeeding discrimination in employment, child care and other contexts, and increasing breastfeeding friendly health care practices.” To join the e-list, click here.

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Sec. 165.002. RIGHT TO BREAST-FEED.
(a) A mother is entitled to breast-feed her baby in any location in which the mother is otherwise authorized to be. A mother’s authority to be in a location may not be revoked for the sole reason that she begins to breast-feed.
(b) A person may not interfere with or restrict the right of
a mother to breast-feed in accordance with this section:
(1) in any place held open to the general public; or
(2) in any place owned or operated by an entity:
(A) from which the comptroller collects taxes; or
(B) which holds a license or permit issued by the
comptroller.

The law would also provide for a $250 civil penalty for repeat violations.

The second incident in Texas demonstrated just how much such change is needed in that state. The incident arose when lactivists were harassed by airport security at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport nurse-in at the Delta Airlines counter. No wonder Dallas and Fort Worth hold the distinction of being among the five worst cities in America in which to have a baby. The activists refused to give up and arranged a second and more successful nurse-in.

KVUE news reports that women gathered on the steps of the state capitol today to show support for HB 1154 (introduced by State Representative Jessica Farrar), and HB 703 (introduced by State Representative Mike Villarreal). HB 703 would license lactation consultants. I wonder, is that a good thing–ensuring quality care–or will it reduce the number of lactation consultants and make it more difficult for breastfeeding women to get the help they need?

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I know the intent was honorable, but the practical application would have cost every business in Wyoming potentially a lot of money. The issue is very important, but the mandates went a little bit far for practicality’s purpose.

It’s disappointing that businesses fail to recognize that breastfeeding not only benefits babies but benefits nursing mothers and their employers! Breastfeeding protects a mother’s health in many ways (I just wrote about how it reduces a mother’s risk of heart attack) and because breastfed babies are sick less often than bottle-fed babies, nursing mothers do not require as much time off work to care for sick children. Providing reasonable work breaks and a comfortable place to nurse benefits employers by providing a positive work environment and reducing absenteeism. Also, let’s not forget the simple fact that a happy mother is a good employee! Legislation shouldn’t be required to help employers realize that fact and it’s shameful that even when such legislation is proposed it is shot down by business lobbyists.

I wish I could have been there to defend that provision along with the one that would have required high schools to instruct students on the benefits of breastfeeding. Were legislators embarrassed to talk about the benefits of breastfeeding? Did they think it’s not an appropriate topic for high schoolers? Are they mistakenly sexualizing the act of breastfeeding? Why exactly was that provision shot down?

The revised bill (PDF) is a far cry from the progressive legislation originally proposed, but at least it would exempt breastfeeding from the state’s indecent exposure law.

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The New Mexico legislation to support working mothers received unanimous approval by the House Labor and Human Resources committee hearing last Tuesday and now faces review by the Consumer and Public Affairs Committee.

South Carolina

After controversial child custody disputes in the state, the South Carolina Breastfeeding Action Committee is pushing to introduce legislation that would allow a breastfeeding mother custody of her child unless the child is in danger. Three states currently allow breastfeeding to be taken into consideration in custody decisions: Maine, Michigan and Utah.

Wisconsin

The “Right to Breastfeed Act” has been introduced in the Wisconsin state legislature by Senator Fred Risser and Representative Sheldon Wasserman. It would allow a mother to breastfeed in any public or private location where the mother is otherwise authorized to be. Much like local legislation recently passed in Wisconsin on the city and county level, the bill would prohibit interfering with a breastfeeding woman and provide a fine of up to $200. Advocates are hopeful that Senate Bill 30 will move swiftly and be received positively now that Risser is president of the state Senate.

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