company
NRW family minister promotes federal law on breastfeeding
“Mothers must be able to breastfeed their children in public”. photo
© Jonathan Brady/PA/dpa
While breastfeeding in public is not illegal, it is controversial. North Rhine-Westphalia’s Minister for Family Affairs, Paul, now wants to take action against this.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Family Minister Josefine Paul (Greens) is promoting a federal law on the right to breastfeed in public. “We are asking the federal government to take appropriate action here,” Paul told the “Rheinische Post”. “In any case, legal clarification would strengthen mothers’ backs and make it clear that breastfeeding children is a fundamental right and socially desirable.”
So far, breastfeeding in public has not been forbidden, but controversy arises again and again, for example when it comes to breastfeeding in restaurants. A report by the Bundestag from 2016 comes to the conclusion that breastfeeding in public is generally permissible. This means that breastfeeding in restaurants is initially legally unobjectionable. However, the house rules of the innkeeper should also be observed.
Paul argued that part of a child- and family-friendly society was that “mothers should be able to breastfeed their children in public”. To date, there is no law specifically dealing with breastfeeding babies in public.