Report: Impact of New Breastfeeding Provisions Under the Affordable Care Act

by Youngmin Yi

IWPR analysis of 2009 data from the Census Bureau and 2006 survey data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has found that the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) breastfeeding protections are well-targeted and likely to reduce existing employment barriers to breastfeeding. According to IWPR’s report, Better Health for Mothers and Children: Breastfeeding Accommocations under the Affordable Care Act, an estimated 19 million women are covered by the provisions, which apply to female employees who are not exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act minimum wage and overtime provisions (that is, most hourly workers). An even greater number are likely to be affected as salaried working women are also likely to benefit from the new workplace requirements that apply to hourly workers. IWPR estimates that the national breastfeeding rate at six months will increase from 43.5 to 47.5 percent, meaning that more than one million additional mothers and their children will breastfeed over the next six years.

While these first-ever projections under the ACA provisions still leave the United States far below the Healthy People (HP) 2010 initiative’s target breastfeeding rate at six months (50 percent), and even farther below the HP2020 goal (60.5 percent), the findings suggest that the provisions will help increase breastfeeding. High rates of ACA coverage among mothers who have historically breastfed at much lower rates show that the provisions are appropriately targeted. In 2006, mothers with family income less than 100 percent of the povertyline, with less than a high school-level education, African American mothers, and mothers under the age of 20 were least likely to breastfeed. IWPR’s estimates show that these are the same groups that have the highest rates of coverage under the ACA breastfeeding protections.