×
Sunday, September 27, 2026

Senate Passes Two Bills For Pregnant And Breastfeeding Moms At Work - Forbes

The U.S. Senate passed two acts that help working moms who are pregnant or breastfeeding. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (known as the PUMP Act) were added to the 2023 omnibus spending bill, which now passed the Senate and is headed for a House vote.

The PUMP Act

The PUMP Act for nursing mothers requires organizations to provide time and space for breastfeeding parents. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 already requires that employers provide reasonable time to express breast milk and provide a place for pumping, other than the bathroom, that is shielded from view and private.

But the previous pumping law excluded most salaried employees, and the PUMP Act will extend these rights to all breastfeeding employees for the first year of the baby’s life. In addition, the new bill states, “Further, time spent to express breast milk must be considered hours worked if the employee is also working.”

According to the Surgeon General, breastfeeding can help protect babies from illnesses like ear infections, diarrhea and pneumonia and longer-term conditions such as obesity and asthma. It also lowers mothers’ risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Three out of four mothers in the U.S. start breastfeeding at birth, but only 13% of babies are exclusively breastfed by the end of six months.

One study in the journal Pediatrics estimates that if 90% of U.S. families breastfed for six months, the U.S. would save $13 billion...



Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMieGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZvcmJlcy5jb...