If you live in TX and are a breastfeeding mother, a potential breastfeeding mother, a sister-brother-mother-father-aunt-uncle-cousin to someone who breastfeeds… then this information is for you. Let’s make TX a legislatively safe & protected place to breastfeed!

HB 703 and HB 1154 are in the House Public Health Committee awaiting a
hearing. There is an enormous number of bills before the legislature
this year and lots of them won’t get hearings.

We need your help to ensure that these bills get heard. Please send an email to Representative Delisi asking her to set these bills for hearing.

Go to this address for a quick and easy way to send a message to Representative Delisi.

Just so that you understand what you are requesting:

HB1154 is the Right to Breastfeed Bill

A person may not interfere with or restrict the right of a mother to breast-feed in accordance with this section:
(1) in any place held open to the general public; or
(2) in any place owned or operated by an entity:
(A) from which the comptroller collects taxes; or
(B) which holds a license or permit issued by the comptroller.

This new law would have more teeth than our current breastfeeding in public law which reads:

Chapter 165. Breast-Feeding
Subchapter A. Breast-Feeding Rights and Policies
Sec. 165.001. Legislative Finding
The legislature finds that breast-feeding a baby is an important and basic act of nurture that must be encouraged in the interests of maternal and child health and family values. In compliance with the breast-feeding promotion program established under the Federal Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. section 1771 et seq.), the Legislature recognizes breast-feeding as the best method of infant nutrition.
Sec. 165.002. Right to Breast-Feed
A mother is entitled to breast-feed her baby in any location in which the mother is authorized to be.

Businesses and Resteraunts have been able to manipulate the current law by interpretting it to read that if a mother’s authorization is revoked then a mother no longer has a right to breastfeed on the premises. The new bill (HB1154) will not only clarify the law to state that a mother’s right to the premise cannot be revoked because of breastfeeding, it also imposes a $250 fine for offenders and violators of the law. Previously, a mother who had been discriminated against had little recourse (asides from civil lawsuit) to defend her right to nurish her child.

HB703 is the Lactation Consultant licensing Bill

It would prevent anyone from claiming to be a lactation consultant unless they are an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. It is a title protection to keep people from just saying that they are lactation consultant like those who teach a breastfeeding class, etc.

This is an effort to protect nursing mothers from professionals who have not recieved proper lactation consultant certification.

Please, take your time to send in your support for these bills. It takes just a couple minutes and a few keystrokes. In the end it will provide protection for breastfeeding mothers accross the state of Texas.