Let nursing mothers be

BREAST-FEEDING is back in the news, thanks to a flight attendant for a small regional airline who ordered a nursing mother off a plane in Vermont last month. Advocates of this healthful practice rallied around, and yesterday chose one of the busiest airline travel days to stage "nurse-in" protests at airports around the country.

Delta Airlines, parent company of the regional airline, said it permits women to nurse on its flights and has reprimanded the attendant. But the woman in Vermont is not alone. Many women face the risk of harassment at malls, restaurants, colleges, and other locations when they attempt to breast-feed their babies. Sadly, Massachusetts is one of five states that have not passed laws specifically giving women the right to breast-feed in public. The Legislature should pass a bill sponsored by Senator Susan Fargo of Lincoln that would legalize public nursing and create an incentive for employers to establish clean, private facilities for women to express and store milk for future use.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, embarrassment at the disapproval nursing often causes is a major factor in the decision of many women either not to breast-feed or to stop after a short time. The Fargo law would not make people who are uncomfortable with the practice any less so, but it would at least establish the legal right of women to nurse in public and take Massachusetts off the ignoble roster of those states that have not spelled out this right: Arkansas, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

Fargo's bill would also provide a carrotto employers who go out of their way to accommodate women workers seeking to express and save milk. If companies provide space -- other than a bathroom stall -- and an electrical outlet, wash basin, and refrigerator for milk storage, the state would award them the designation "mother friendly." Similar laws in Texas, signed by George W. Bush, and Florida, signed by Jeb Bush, have been extremely well received, according to Fargo aide Don Siriani.

"This is a public health issue," said Fargo, "a matter of preventing long-term diseases." Breast-fed children benefit by having fewer ear infections, less obesity, less diabetes, and lower rates of leukemia. Their mothers have lower rates of premenopausal breast cancer than mothers who use formula. According to the American Academy of pediatrics, the country could save $3.6 billion a year in healthcare costs if children were fed only breast milk in their first six months and at least some breast milk in the next six.

A state that considers itself a world leader in medical care should have long since done everything possible to help mothers give their children this healthy start.