Hospital Infant Feeding Act.

Existing law provides for the licensure and regulation of health facilities, including hospitals, by the State Department of Public Health. Existing law requires all general acute care hospitals and special hospitals providing maternity care to make available a breastfeeding consultant, or alternatively, to provide information to the mother on where to receive breastfeeding information. This bill would require all general acute care hospitals and special hospitals that have perinatal units, as defined, to have an infant-feeding policy and to clearly post that policy in the perinatal unit or on the hospital or health system Internet Web site. This bill would require that the infant-feeding policy be routinely communicated to perinatal unit staff and that the infant-feeding policy apply to all infants in a perinatal unit. This bill would become operative January 1, 2014.