Breast Feeding

The American Academy of Pediatrics said mothers should breast-feed for at least a year--six months longer than previously advised. The guidelines also urge employers to provide a place for women to nurse and recommend that insurance companies pay for services like lactation consultations. Breast-feeding provides individual health benefits as well as significant social and economic benefits to the nation, including reduced health-care costs, the academy wrote in its journal Pediatrics.

Breast-feeding mothers would be exempt from jury duty under a bill sent to the governor Monday. "Jury duty is an important civic right, but breast-feeding is clearly not compatible with jury service," said the bill's author, Assemblyman Ted Lempert (D-San Carlos).

Legislation protecting a woman's right to breast-feed her baby in public was signed Monday by Gov. Pete Wilson, who said nursing promotes maternal and infant bonding while reducing health care costs for children. "By signing this bill, I am removing the barriers of embarrassment, harassment and charges of indecent exposure when a mother breast-feeds her child in public," Wilson said. "Breast-feeding . . . is a normal, healthy way of nourishing infants."

Two years after dying in an Assembly committee, a bill to expressly allow California women to breast-feed in public won overwhelming approval Thursday amid signs that the measure could soon become law. Gov. Pete Wilson said he would sign the bill, although he thinks it is "needless," and it faces little opposition in the Senate after winning Assembly approval 61 to 9.

A new analysis of more than 30 previous studies suggests that breast feeding infants produces a boost in IQ of 3 to 5 points compared to infants who are bottle-fed. The enhancement is apparent as early as 6 months and persists for at least 15 years, according to Dr. James W. Anderson of the University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center. Anderson suggests in today's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that nutrients in breast milk account for about 3.

Women carrying the AIDS virus should not be put off breast-feeding their babies, for the risk of transmitting the virus in that fashion appears low, the World Health Organization said Friday, adding that the benefits of breast-feeding outweigh the risk of infection to the infant. Dr. Jonathan Mann, who heads the WHO program on AIDS, said the risk of possible transmission through breast-feeding "is very small."

Increased breast-feeding during the first months of life appears to raise a child's verbal IQ, according to a study of nearly 14,000 children that was released Monday. The study in Archives of General Psychiatry found that 6-year-olds whose mothers were part of a program that encouraged them to breast-feed had verbal IQs that were an average of 7.5 points higher than those of children in a control group.

Florida has become the nation's first state to guarantee the right to breast-feed in public. "It's not a shameful act that ought to be hidden behind closed doors," Gov. Lawton Chiles said at a bill-signing ceremony Tuesday. "It's a time of bonding and nurturing between a mother and her baby. We know breast-feeding ought to be encouraged."

Breast-feeding mothers can take many drugs without endangering their infants, but some still should be avoided, doctors reported Monday. "The majority of drugs either don't cross into breast milk or do so in such small amounts that they don't hurt the baby," said Cheston Berlin of Penn State University's Hershey Medical Center. He said physicians too often tell mothers not to breast feed if they are taking medication, but "we're trying to dispel this notion" and tell women exactly what is safe.

In an office bathroom, amid the sounds of toilets flushing, a new mother pumps milk from her breasts into bottles that will later be fed to her newborn child. At another company across town, a mother hides in a supply closet filling plastic sandwich bags with her milk, and praying that none of her co-workers will need a pencil or pen. Such unpleasant scenes, say women's advocates, are becoming more common with the growing presence of women in the workplace.