BILL NUMBER: SB 502INTRODUCED BILL TEXT INTRODUCED BY Senators Pavley and De Len FEBRUARY 17, 2011 An act to add Section 123366 to the Health and Safety Code, relating to public health. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST SB 502, as introduced, Pavley. Hospital Infant Feeding Protection Act. Existing law provides for the licensure and regulation of health facilities, including hospitals, by the State Department of Public Health. Existing law requires all general acute care hospitals and special hospitals providing maternity care to make available a breast-feeding consultant, or alternatively, to provide information to the mother on where to receive breast-feeding information. This bill would require all general acute care hospitals and special hospitals that have perinatal units, as defined, to have an infant-feeding policy and to clearly post that policy. This bill would require that the infant-feeding policy be routinely communicated to all perinatal unit staff and that the infant-feeding policy apply to all infants in a perinatal unit. This bill would become operative January 1, 2014. Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS: SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following: (a) A growing body of evidence indicates that early infant feeding practices can affect later growth and development, particularly with regard to obesity. (b) Parents and care providers are advised to learn and use health infant feeding practices, especially for bottle feeding. (c) The United States Surgeon General, and all the major health organizations including the American Academy of Pediatrics and World Health Organization, recommend exclusive breastfeeding for most babies, unless specifically contraindicated, for the first six months and continued breastfeeding with the addition of appropriate foods up to at least one year of age. (d) The United States Healthy People 2020 goals for breastfeeding set new targets for decreased formula supplementation within the first two days of life and increased number of births in facilities that provide recommended lactation care. (e) The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention monitor hospital practices at the state and national level with the Maternity Practices in Infant Nutrition and Care (mPINC) survey. Whereas mPINC benchmarks suggest that 10 percent or fewer of breastfeeding infants should receive supplemental formula, fewer than 10 percent of California hospitals reach that goal. In eight California hospitals, at least 90 percent of breast-fed infants are given supplemental formula during the hospital stay. (f) In April 2010, the Joint Commission, the accreditation organization for hospitals, began including exclusive breastfeeding rates as part of its perinatal care core evaluation indicators for maternity hospitals. SEC. 2. Section 123366 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read: 123366. (a) This section shall be known, and may be cited as, the Hospital Infant Feeding Protection Act. (b) For the purposes of this section, "perinatal unit" means a maternity or newborn service of the hospital for the provision of care during pregnancy, labor, delivery, and postpartum and neonatal periods with appropriate staff, space, equipment, and supplies. (c) All general acute care hospitals and special hospitals, as defined in subdivisions (a) and (f) of Section 1250, that have a perinatal unit shall have an infant-feeding policy and shall clearly post that policy. (d) The infant-feeding policy shall be routinely communicated to all perinatal unit staff. (e) The infant-feeding policy shall apply to all infants in a perinatal unit. (f) This section shall become operative January 1, 2014.