New Health Care Law adds new protections for mothers

The recent health care reform law, such as patient safety and cost-effective treatment is known to act, contained a provision to the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), for an employer to provide reasonable break request for an employee who offer express breast milk for the care of their child than a year after the birth of the baby all the time workers as a need to express milk. In addition, the law provides that employers find a place, as well as offering a bath to get the employee to expressMilk. Some employers already covered by state laws dealing with breastfeeding mothers at work, find out what they are called to be used in lactation room for nursing mothers, breast milk during working hours for the expression.

The amendment to the FLSA provides that the employer is not required to take a break for all employees receive adequate working time devoted to expressing breast milk to compensate. However, this provision can provide practical problems for employers.Employers will have to decide whether and how to exploit this provision, working in relation to the documentation of employee time.

The new amendment also provides that if compliance with this new law would be unreasonable for employers who employ fewer than 50 employees, the employer must not impose the law. Since this provision allows an exception to the law, small employers should expect that if the Department of Labor shall adopt rulesThe interpretation of this law is interpreted this exception very narrowly.

This change in the health care legislation, a public health objective of the United States Center for Disease Control, the percentage of mothers that their children are growing up in post-natal breast-feeding to 75 percent by 2010. Health professionals and health authorities have promoted breastfeeding to improve infant health. These doctors believe thatMothers and children benefit from breast milk. Breast milk contains antibodies that protect children against bacteria and viruses. Breastfed babies have fewer ear infections, respiratory infections, urinary tract infections and diarrhea are rare. Infants who are exclusively breastfed are less likely to visit health care, prescriptions and hospital admissions that require a lower total cost of medical care, when children who were never breastfed compared.

It is also believed thatBreastfeeding mothers also receive long-term health effects of prevention, including an earlier return to pre-pregnancy weight and a reduced risk of breast cancer in pre-menopause and osteoporosis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 70 percent of mothers start breastfeeding immediately after birth, but less than 20 percent of mothers exclusively breast are the same six months later.

If this new law came into force at least 24 states,including Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming, had a kind of national law provides protection for breastfeeding mothers who are breastfeeding and are necessary to bring the work to express milk. Since changes in health law in the states of silence on these existing stateThe laws provide that the state law, the more protection that federal law takes precedence over federal law. Therefore, employers in states with nursing laws go beyond the new federal states claim to ensure that they comply with state law. All employers should review their policies and practices relating to nursing mothers to ensure that they comply with state or federal law, as appropriate, they are.