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Lactation Legislation on the Move
New York officials are working to protect and promote breastfeeding

By Charlotte Eichna

The calls have not stopped pouring in since Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s (D-Manhattan/Queens) office first began pushing for federal breastfeeding legislation in the late 1990s.

There were stories about women getting booted from federal property or public places because they were breastfeeding, faulty breast pumps, moms losing jobs—or women who still worked, but who had trouble finding a place and time to pump their milk.

“One woman told me that her coworkers would stand outside her door and moo,” Maloney said.

In Maloney’s mind, it all added up to one thing.

“Somewhere along the line,” she said, “breastfeeding went from a completely natural and pure thing to do to something that is truly a challenge and very difficult for women to do.” She is not the only local legislator who has noticed.

In 2005 and 2006, State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn) introduced a bill that would help working mothers who nurse, but it never moved out of committee. State Sen. Ruben Diaz (D-Bronx) and his son, Assembly Member Ruben Diaz Jr. (D-Bronx), have also taken up the fight and introduced companion bills that would secure an employee’s right to express, or pump, breast milk at work. Assembly Member RoAnn M. Destito (D-Oneida) has a similar bill, and may support the Diaz initiative or seek Senate sponsorship for her legislation.

Pumping Solutions for Political Moms

Moms with government jobs are also faced with the task of finding a place to breastfeed or express milk in the workplace.

Members of Congress head to the Lindy Boggs room, named after the Louisiana representative who was elected to her husband’s seat following his death, according to Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan/Queens). Lobbyists, reporters and other non-elected officials can visit the nurse’s office.

In Albany, State Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) says lobbying moms know that her office—and refrigerator—are pump-friendly.

And in downtown Manhattan, Council members can retire to their private offices at 250 Broadway. Jessica Lappin, an East Side Council Member who is expecting a baby in March, said that the mayor controls the other half of the space at City Hall.

“They’re sitting in a bull pen,” she said. “I would be a lot more worried, I think, if I worked on that side of the hall.” — Charlotte Eichna

And late last year, State Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) introduced a “Breastfeeding Bill of Rights,” which requires that new moms be informed of breastfeeding options before they deliver, as well as during their stay in and after they leave a hospital. The bill also bans formula providers from pressuring moms while they’re in a maternal healthcare facility.

There is even a little activity at the city level. Bills in 2001 and 2002 recognized World Breastfeeding Week (in August), and in 2003 and 2004, the City Council introduced legislation encouraging Congress to act on pending breastfeeding legislation.

“This is a problem,” explained Diaz Sr., “that mothers are facing throughout the whole state.”

New York falls somewhere in the middle when it comes to breastfeeding laws. Although there are not any workplace regulations, breastfeeding is protected in any public or private location here, according to a recent Congressional Research Service Report. Nursing is also exempted from state indecency laws. And in New York, breastfed children under 12 months can be kept in correctional facilities with incarcerated mothers—an unusual provision.

But Florida was the first state to enact comprehensive breastfeeding laws in 1993, according to the report. Currently 38 states and Puerto Rico have some sort of legislation regarding breastfeeding on the books. Most protect a mother’s right to feed any place she’s legally permitted to be, although several states go further, exempting breastfeeding from indecency laws or protecting breastfeeding in the workplace.

Women who live in states that lack specific breastfeeding laws may also be protected through local ordinances, or court regulations regarding jury duty.

There are a lot of reasons behind the push to promote breastfeeding. Breastfed babies get important antibodies and tend to have healthier body compositions, says Dr. Andrew Racine, who heads up general pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx. Breastfeeding moms can also get protection from osteoporosis and certain types of cancer.

Social issues also come into play, as lower-income women generally have patchy health benefits and child rearing support at their jobs. New York State National Organization for Women President Marcia Pappas says there are even broader economic implications as well. Older women tend to live in poverty once they retire, Pappas said, partly because they take off far more time to raise children, cutting into Social Security and retirement benefits.

Legislators looking to address this issue will have to overcome a somewhat difficult barrier: culture.

“For several generations, the message getting out there has been, ‘Formula good, breast in public not,’” Krueger said. At the same time, there is this “very strange world view about the purpose of the breast.”

But New York’s status looks like it might change. At press time, State Sen. Diaz’s office said it had 10 co-sponsors for the proposal. Krueger, who also signed on to Diaz’s bill, is currently looking for Assembly sponsors to support her legislation.

They do not face any formal opposition, since there is not really a cogent anti-breastfeeding movement. Certainly the formula industry is leery of new legislation, as are employers, who worry about increased regulation, but those concerns mostly focus on money.

“No one is against breastfeeding, necessarily,” Maloney said. “But some people just do not want to see it. They get squeamish about it.”

Maloney, who in 1999 helped secure a woman’s right to nurse on federal property, is now pushing for passage of the Breastfeeding Promotion Act. The bill would, among other things, create a tax credit for employers who incurred costs making the workplace friendly for nursing moms, and set a performance standard for breast pumps.

“It is long past time when we need to move beyond a patchwork of state laws,” Maloney said. “We need to reverse the fact that the United States has one of lowest breastfeeding rates in the industrialized world and one of the highest rates of infant mortality—and I would call that a national scandal.”