1. Breastfeeding provides important health benefits to babies.

2. Returning to work after having a child is a balancing act for the whole family. 

For a woman returning to work who continues to breastfeed her baby, the balancing act can be even trickier, often requiring her to find time to “pump,” that awkward but essential process of expressing breast milk with out the baby’s assistance.  A growing number of states are recognizing that employers must be encouraged to reasonably accommodate breastfeeding mothers who are returning to work.  Nearly a third of states have laws that provide some level of protection to employees needing to express breast milk during the workday; five states passed such laws this year.

Last month New York joined this trend, granting new workplace rights to breastfeeding mothers.  A new law, known as the Expressing at Work Act, requires employers to reasonably accommodate mothers who need to express breast milk in the workplace. This new law will make it easier for nursing mothers in New York to balance work and family responsibilities.

The medical evidence is clear that breast milk provides important health benefits to a baby and so by facilitating increased breastfeeding this new bill will not only protect the rights of working mothers but will improve children’s health. The “expected” family leave time is often only three months – the maximum unpaid leave protection provided by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act and often mirrored in employers’ policies.  Yet the medical experts recommend that a child be breastfed at least until age one. More than half of mothers with children under age three work outside the home according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The number of women who decide to wean their babies before returning to work, or who postpone a return to work altogether to facilitate breastfeeding, is not known.  The case of an architect working in an open plan office that had only a single stall bathroom is just one of the many stories we have heard about women deciding that pumping at work would be impossible and so weaning becomes their only option.  Women in non-office jobs face even more difficulties finding a private place and adequate cold storage. 

A teacher in a small town outside Buffalo, NY, contacted Legal Momentum last year with a situation typical of the difficulties women encounter upon returning to work while continuing to breastfeed. The teacher was forbidden by her principal from using 10 minutes of her class preparation periods to express breast milk or to go to the school’s nearby child care center to nurse her baby. Under New York's Expressing at Work law, this teacher’s employer would now be required to provide her with reasonable, unpaid break time and make an effort to provide a location where she could express breast milk in private. The new law also prevents employers from discriminating against nursing mothers.

Studies show that breastfed babies are healthier, and that parents of a child who is breastfed are less likely to miss work caring for a sick child. Many employers will benefit from more productive workers who need fewer days off to take care of sick children. Research has also shown that when a mother’s efforts to breastfeed are supported at her job, her breast-feeding rates are comparable to that of stay-at-home mothers.

New laws requiring “reasonable accommodation” for expressing milk are a step in the right direction.  These laws must include enforcement provisions and should include provisions to ensure that privacy, cold storage, and reasonable break time for pumping are available.  More family friendly policies – such as adequate and paid leave time and quality, affordable child care – are also needed to bring about healthy babies, and family balance.