Discussion Response – U.S. Laws Supporting Breastfeeding Mothers

Discussion Response – U.S. Laws Supporting Breastfeeding Mothers

Hello,

Thank you for sharing your post. According to Amir (2014), breastfeeding in public is a legal activity that is protected by state and federal law in all states. In whatever state a person lives in, a mother can breastfeed her baby anywhere she is entitled. So, a woman can feed a bottle to her baby or choose to breastfeed without fear of repercussion. These places also included privately owned places such as stores and restaurants. Federal legislation also warrants women to breastfeed on federal property. An employer has to allow employees to breastfeed or pump milk during work breaks. A daycare center is required to provide a facility where nursing mothers can do the same. In addition, nursing mothers are exempted from jury duties in 17 states. In 2010, the Obamacare Act came into law. The law offers protection to nursing mothers and allows them to continue breastfeeding once they return to work after the maternity break. The law requires that mothers be provided with break time that is reasonably long for them to express their milk, a non-bathroom private place where mothers can express milk during working time but only in the first year of the baby’s life (Smith et al., 2014).

On the other hand, numerous stories have been in the headlines of mothers asking to cover up or stop breastfeeding their babies during flights. Although many airline companies have allowed women to breastfeed during flights, a mother should check prior to booking a flight the breastfeeding policy of an airline. The Small Airport Mothers’ Rooms Act (H.R. 3362) that you mention in your discussion aims at increasing the number of tables where mothers can change their babies and also extends this requirement to small airport hubs. The proposed requirements are expected to be implemented by 2021 for medium and large hubs, while 2023 is the deadline for small units to comply. Under the current law, medium and large airports may benefit from the Airports Improvement Grant only if they have baby changing tables and lactation rooms in the women’s and men’s bathrooms.

References

Amir, L. H. (2014). Breastfeeding in public: “You can do it?”. International breastfeeding journal, 9(1), 1-3.

Smith-Gagen, J., Hollen, R., Tashiro, S., Cook, D. M., & Yang, W. (2014). The association of state law to breastfeeding practices in the US. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 18(9), 2034-2043.

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Discussion Response – U.S. Laws Supporting Breastfeeding Mothers

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My group for the project was Paige Haley, Rajinder Kaur, and myself. This presentation project was a good learning experience. For this project, my group chose the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses as the professional nursing organization to use to do our grassroots project. One thing that the organization has done in the last year, was undersign a letter of gratitude to Representative Carol Miller for introducing a bill. This bill was the Small Airports Mothers’ Rooms Act of 2019. This bill has passed and is law. It has not taken effect yet, but the legislation requires small airports to have at least 1 private breastfeeding room that is not a restroom for moms and babies to be able to breastfeed in (Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses, 2020).

This legislation was very important because it helps moms and babies continue breastfeeding at airports, where many times it could be difficult to do so since there is little to no privacy. There are different ways in which the organization reaches out to legislators and keeps people informed. They may write letters to legislators while they utilize their Facebook page or Twitter account to keep the public informed. Since they are a professional nursing organization, they also offer education for their nurses, and I would imagine they send out newsletters to their members since the other professional nursing organizations seem to do this as well. For this particular issue, the organization and others that have supported the same cause have been successful in passing legislation. The small airport legislation was an extension of another law that was somewhat recently passed that required large and medium-sized airports to do the same thing (Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses, 2020).

References
Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses. (2020, February 21). Letters to policymakers. https://www.awhonn.org/advocate/letters-to-policymakers/.