State OK for Breast-Feeding in Public Nears

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.

The legislation, authored by Assembly Majority Leader Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), would make California the 13th state with a law permitting mothers to nurse in public or private places they are otherwise entitled to be.

The bill adopted Thursday was similar to one killed in committee in 1995 by Republican assemblymen who called it unnecessary and suggested that it would lead to public nudity.

Villaraigosa called the bill an effective way to signal the benefits of breast-feeding while ensuring that women who nurse are protected from harassment.

Although court decisions have upheld a woman’s right to nurse in public, Villaraigosa said he has received “a whole slew of complaints” from breast-feeding mothers who have been asked to leave stores, restaurants, malls and other businesses.

In one instance, a La Jolla woman asked to leave a restaurant went to nurse in her car in the parking lot, where the attendant also complained. Another mother who was banished to a restroom with her baby was harassed by patrons who griped that she was monopolizing the stall. A third woman was ordered off a bus in Los Angeles, Villaraigosa said.

Health experts applauded the bill’s passage, expressing hope that it would help wipe out attitudes of public disapproval that often persuade a mother to abandon nursing early on.

“If this passes, it tells mothers that we want you to breast-feed, that we want this to be the natural and easy thing it was designed to be,” said Dr. Bruce Smith, a San Bernardino County public health officer and breast-feeding expert.

Breast-feeding is important, Smith said, because babies who nurse get sick less frequently--suffering only half as many ear infections, for example--and are less likely to die of sudden infant death syndrome. In addition, scientists recently discovered a fat in breast milk that plays an integral role in brain development, Smith said.

“The advantages are proven,” he said. “Breast-feeding works.”

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Unlike two years ago, when a partisan split doomed the bill, Villaraigosa had help this time from two Republican co-authors--Brooks Firestone of Los Olivos and Jim Cuneen of San Jose. Eighteen other Republicans also voted for the bill.

“It’s too bad that we need a law, but it seems like we do,” said Firestone. “I also think this bill is a good way for us to say, ‘C’mon people, relax. Let’s not be uptight about this exposure.’ ”

Villaraigosa agreed, noting that it’s time for people to “get past the sexuality of a woman’s breast.”

The nine Republicans who voted against the bill included two of the three GOP women in the Assembly. Assemblywoman Marilyn Brewer (R-Newport Beach) called the bill a “further infringement” on the rights of business owners and predicted it would invite “frivolous” lawsuits.

Assemblywoman Lynne Leach (R-Walnut Creek) said such a law might encourage women to take their babies into “inappropriate arenas where their safety and health might be at risk.”

“I’m thinking of a Little League game where the baby would be out there in the bleachers, exposed to dust and all that,” Leach said. “I don’t think we should encourage mothers to take babies into those unhealthy circumstances.”

The third Republican woman in the Assembly, Barbara Alby of Fair Oaks, abstained.

About three-quarters of California women breast-feed their babies immediately after birth, but only 20% are still nursing when their babies are 6 months old and only 5% nurse babies who are a year old. The rate is particularly low among poor women.

Studies show that public disapproval is one of three explanations women give most often for abandoning nursing.

Assemblywoman Kerry Mazzoni (D-San Rafael) said she breast-fed her babies in public and recalled “a feeling that it was not OK.” When women feel such disdain, she said, it can inhibit the flow of milk.

Although he said he would sign the bill, Wilson expressed regret that the Legislature was spending its time on breast-feeding.

“I don’t think we should have a statute necessarily that regulates taste,” Wilson said. “I think that is a matter that is best left to the individual. I don’t think the state of California needs to legislate.”

But Villaraigosa insisted that women need a tool with which to fight back if they experience discrimination. In the other states that passed similar legislation, he said, “the problem stopped--because of the publicity it received and the public awareness it created.”

Times staff writer Max Vanzi contributed to this story.