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Health professionals and public health officials promote breastfeeding to improve infant health. Both mothers and children benefit from breast milk. Breastfeeding helps prevent diarrhea and infections in infants. It also provides long-term preventive effects for the mother, including an earlier return to pre-pregnancy weight, reduced risk of pre-menopausal breast cancer and osteoporosis. According to the New York Times, about 70 percent of mothers start breastfeeding immediately after birth, but less than 20 percent of those moms are breastfeeding exclusively six months later. Healthy People 2010 objectives for the nation include increasing the proportion of mothers who breastfeed their babies in the early postpartum period to 75 percent.
Thirty-nine states have laws with language specifically allowing women to breastfeed in any public or private location (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming).
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