50 State Summary of Breastfeeding Laws

Updated June 2008

Resources

Health professionals and public health officials promote breastfeeding to improve infant health. Both mothers and children benefit from breast milk. Breast milk contains antibodies that protect infants from bacteria and viruses. Breastfed children have fewer ear infections, respiratory infections, urinary tract infections and have diarrhea less often. Infants who are exclusively breastfed tend to need fewer health care visits, prescriptions and hospitalizations resulting in a lower total medical care cost compared to never-breastfed infants. It also provides long-term preventative effects for the mother, including an earlier return to pre-pregnancy weight, reduced risk of pre-menopausal breast cancer and osteoporosis. According to the New York Times, approximately 70 percent of mothers start breastfeeding immediately after birth, but less than 20 percent of those moms are breastfeeding exclusively six months later. It is a national goal to increase the proportion of mothers who breastfeed their babies in the early postpartum period to 75 percent by the year 2010.

• Thirty-nine states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands have laws with language specifically allowing women to breastfeed in any public or private location (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming).
• Twenty-five states and the Virgin Islands exempt breastfeeding from public indecency laws (Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming).
• Twenty one states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have laws related to breastfeeding in the workplace (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming).
• Ten states and Puerto Rico exempt breastfeeding mothers from jury duty (California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon and Virginia).
• Five states and Puerto Rico have implemented or encouraged the development of a breastfeeding awareness education campaign (California, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri and Vermont).
• Virginia allows women to breastfeed on any land or property owned by the state.

Several states have unique laws related to breastfeeding. For instance,

• The state of Virginia allows women to breastfeed on any land or property owned by the state. Puerto Rico requires shopping malls, airports, public service government centers and other select locations to have accessible areas designed for breastfeeding and diaper changing that are not bathrooms.
• At least two states have laws related to child care facilities and breastfeeding. Louisiana prohibits any child care facility from discriminating against breastfed babies. Mississippi requires licensed child care facilities to provide breast-feeding mothers with a sanitary place that is not a toilet stall to breast-feed their children or express milk, to provide a refrigerator to store expressed milk, to train staff in the safe and proper storage and handling of human milk, and to display breast-feeding promotion information to the clients of the facility.
• California requires the Department of Public Health to develop a training course of hospital policies and recommendations that promote exclusive breastfeeding and specify staff for whom this model training is appropriate. The recommendation is targeted at hospitals with exclusive patient breastfeeding rates ranked in the lowest twenty-five percent of the state.
• Maryland exempts from the sales and use tax the sale of tangible personal property that is manufactured for the purpose of initiating, supporting or sustaining breastfeeding.
• California, New York and Texas have laws related to the procurement, processing, distribution or use of human milk.

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/breast50.htm