Jackson, Miss– Mothers who choose to breastfeed have to actively manage their breast milk supply. Now a bill that has passed the Senate could make it state law for your employer to provide a clean space for pumping or feeding to happen.
“If you don’t use it, you lose it.”
You’ve heard the saying before, and it applies to breastfeeding. If a woman doesn’t actively pump breast milk or breastfeed her infant, that supply dries up. So if you’re a woman with a job and a baby, you may have had to make a choice–pump in the bathroom, or not at all.
This bill, currently in house committee, would require employers to provide a place other than a bathroom or toilet stall for a mother to pump her breast milk during working hours. The bill also requires that the state department of health would also educate employers about the importance of this space for women.
However, the bill is not law yet. The deadline for bills to make it out of committee is today. Therefore, if the workplace breastfeeding bill doesn’t make it to the House floor, it dies for the year.
