Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding—to give sustenance to a baby from a mother’s breast—is the sole source of nourishment for mammals, including humans (prior to the invention of formula), until the age of weaning. The breast contains mammary glands that produce the milk a baby needs to survive. For humans throughout history, breastfeeding was a common and accepted part of motherhood; only the nobles who could employ wet nurses could be exempted from this task.

In the early twentieth century in the United States, however, many people began viewing breastfeeding negatively and and considering it a low-class practice. With a rise in use of homemade and commercial baby formula during the twentieth century, the necessity of the mother to breastfeed diminished, and negative attitudes toward it snowballed. It became more difficult to breastfeed in public spaces without repercussions. If a woman were to breastfeed while in a public area, even if she were to cover her baby and her breast, she could be charged with indecent exposure.

These attitudes slowly began to change toward the end of the twentieth century. In 1984, New York became the first state in the country to legalize breastfeeding in public. In Arkansas, the act of breastfeeding in public was illegal until 2007, when the Arkansas General Assembly passed a bill stating, “A woman is not in violation of this section [indecent exposure] for breastfeeding a child in a public place or any place where other individuals are present.” This new law permitted a mother to breastfeed her baby while in a public area without the fear of being charged with a crime.

It was not until 2018 that breastfeeding in public was legalized in all fifty states. While this was a major step forward for women, it did not completely protect working mothers. During the period when a baby is being breastfed, the breast milk must be expressed multiple times throughout the day in order to keep the milk supply active and to prevent pain and discomfort for the mother. Until 2009 in Arkansas, there was often no way for a woman to pump breast milk while at work without having to do it in a bathroom or some other area outside work premises. That year, Arkansas passed a second breastfeeding law requiring employers to provide a reasonable break time and area to any employee needing to pump breast milk. A national law followed in 2010 called the “Break Time for Nursing Mothers Act.”

While this law benefits employees who are breastfeeding, it has downsides for some. The law requires that an employer make a reasonable effort to provide a private location that is not a bathroom for an employee to pump breast milk. But the law says that the employer can dictate if the employee must clock out during this time or if this break will be counted toward paid working hours. As some women who want to breastfeed may not be able to afford to take an unpaid break in order to express their breast milk, they may try to pump less often (which risks the milk supply drying up) or choose to use formula and allow their milk supply to dry up. Either option can lead to pain for the mothers, as the inability to express milk can lead to inflammation and, in some cases, infection of the milk ducts.

A revision to the 2010 law helped to end some of the loopholes that employers were using to justify discriminating against breastfeeding mothers. In 2022, the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act, or the PUMP Act, allowed for any employee to file a lawsuit against an employer who denied breaks to pump; it required all employers to count pump breaks into the hourly minimum-wage calculations and provided overtime if an employee was not completely relieved from work duties, and it protected nursing mothers from being penalized for breaks in the workplace.

Groups throughout the state promote breastfeeding. One of these groups is the Arkansas Breastfeeding Coalition, Inc. (ABC), which was founded in 2006 as a nonprofit organization that promotes education and support for Arkansas mothers. ABC also helps to connect breastfeeding mothers with other resources available to them such as Arkansas Women, Infants and Children (WIC) benefits and lactation consultants. La Leche League of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas also supports breastfeeding in the state and surrounding region.

For additional information:
Arkansas Breastfeeding Coalition. https://arbfc.org/ (accessed May 14, 2026).

“Arkansas Breastfeeding Laws.” Mamava. https://www.mamava.com/breastfeeding-law/arkansas (accessed May 14, 2026).

“Breastfeeding Laws in Arkansas.” Arkansas Department of Health. https://healthy.arkansas.gov/wp-content/uploads/Breastfeeding_Laws_in_AR.pdf (accessed May 14, 2026).

“Community Support for Breastfeeding.” Arkansas Department of Health. https://healthy.arkansas.gov/programs-services/community-family-child-health/family-health/womens-health/community-support-for-breastfeeding/ (accessed May 14, 2026).

Jones, Crystal D., Rebecca D. Dones, Karina Leal, Mayra Leal, Dora Smith, and Hari Eswaran. “Barriers to Breastfeeding among Medicaid Mothers: Perceptions of Telelactation Education and Support.” PEC Innovation, April 21, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecinn.2026.100479 (accessed May 14, 2026).

La Leche League of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. https://www.lllalmsla.org/ (accessed May 14, 2026).

“Nursing Mother Breaks.” Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing. https://labor.arkansas.gov/labor/labor-standards/nursing-mothers-breaks/ (accessed May 14, 2026).

Scott, Allison L., Ann W. Lambert, Chih-hsuan Wang, Kelly V. Johnson, Jessica Weiss, and Tony Stankus. “University Campus Breastfeeding, Knowledge, and Perceptions of Support: An Exploratory Study.” PloS ONE, May 26, 2023. Online at https://scholarworks.uark.edu/nurspub/8/ or https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0285008 (accessed May 14, 2026).

Mikaela Bailey
University of Arkansas at Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture