I happened upon this timely article today.
Tucson, Arizona Monday, 14 May 2001
Breast-feeding gains
Politicians around the nation favor laws to encourage and aid mothers at work, in public
By David Crary
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK - In a nation that values motherhood even ahead of apple pie, politicians have found a way to show they're pro-mom - passing bill after bill defending and promoting breast-feeding.
Lawmakers in a half-dozen states have been working on breast-feeding bills this year. Since 1994, when New York enacted a groundbreaking breast-feeder's rights law, 30 legislatures and Congress have approved some type of measure supporting nursing mothers.
It is a cause that can unite left-leaning feminists with conservatives. Often, the bills have little or no opposition.
Yet breast-feeding proponents, even as they welcome the legislation, say the United States still lags woefully behind most other nations in encouraging the practice.
"As a society, we associate the breast with something sexual rather than with a basic act of nurture," said Elizabeth Baldwin, a Miami attorney who monitors breast-feeding legislation.
(In Arizona, the Legislature did not pursue bills on breast-feeding this year. The Department of Health Services, however, has a program promoting the practice, including a pilot program aimed at having mothers bring their babies to work to feed them, spokesman Michael Murphy said. "We do promote breast-feeding as a matter of public health," Murphy said.)
The recent laws fall into four basic categories:
* Many clarify that women have a right to breast-feed in public, stipulating that the practice doesn't violate indecency laws and in some cases outlawing discrimination against nursing mothers;
* Other measures encourage employers to accommodate nursing mothers at the workplace by providing time and private space for them to nurse or pump milk;
* Some states exempt nursing mothers from jury duty;
* Three states - Maine, Michigan and Utah - now require courts to consider breast-feeding as a factor in determining post-divorce child-custody and visitation arrangements.
The Washington state Legislature approved a bill this spring exempting breast-feeding women from the state's indecent-exposure law. Louisiana's House of Representatives unanimously passed a similar measure after hearing of breast-feeding mothers ordered to leave shopping malls.
"We're not trying to set up fines or create a breast police," said Sandra Adams, executive director of the Louisiana Maternal and Child Health Coalition. "We just want to say Louisiana supports breast-feeding."
Health experts say breast milk is the best nourishment for newborns, although only 29 percent of American mothers breast-feed their babies until the infants are 6 months old. |
