The Legislative Assembly approved an expansion of breastfeeding rights, which will allow the extension of leave every three months, for the entire period that the baby is breastfed, and include periods for milk extraction during the workday.

The project 24481 “Law to protect, promote, and support breastfeeding,” driven by Deputy Antonio Ortega from the Broad Front (FA), was unanimously approved in its second debate in the third full-power committee on Wednesday, March 18.

The bill states that only 27% of babies in Costa Rica are breastfed until six months, highlighting the need to update the legislation to improve this situation.
Extended breastfeeding has nutritional and emotional benefits that promote children’s health. In this sense, babies who are breastfed for a longer period get sick less often and recover more quickly from illnesses. Therefore, this bill establishes that the work leave (one month before birth and three months after) can be extended every three months for as long as the baby is breastfed, thru medical certification.

At the workplace, the breastfeeding mother will have one hour to breastfeed the child, for which she can choose to arrive one hour later or leave one hour earlier than the usual schedule, or use half-hour intervals twice a day, or 15-minute intervals every two hours during regular workdays or 15-minute intervals every three hours during overtime.

The Congress of the Republic of Colombia has enacted Law 2361 of 2024, whose purpose is to establish general guidelines for the creation of a public policy focused on breastfeeding, complementary feeding and the promotion of breast milk donation for human milk banks. This law aims to promote healthy and sustainable practices in infant nutrition at the national level.

The norm integrates key definitions, highlighting complementary feeding, which begins at six months of age and extends up to 24 months, maintaining breastfeeding. It also defines the concept of human milk banks, describing them as institutions responsible for the collection, quality control, processing, preservation, storage and distribution of breast milk for preventive, therapeutic and research purposes.

In order to recognize breastfeeding as a human right, promote it and guarantee its exercise, the local Congress approved the ruling on the initiative to amend and add numeral 1, section C of Article 9 of the Political Constitution of Mexico City.

With this legal amendment, the right to breastfeeding is incorporated into the local Magna Carta as a human right, considering both the best interest of the child and the free self-determination of women with respect to their bodies, and establishes that, as a result, secondary legislation must guarantee its full exercise.