Establishments and offices in the city must answer the call of the city government to abide by provisions of Republic Act No. 1128 requiring the provision on lactating stations or rooms for breastfeeding mothers.
Known for being consistent awardee as child-friendly city, Davao City is passionately pursuing the full compliance of the law in accordance with RA10028 otherwise known as the “Expanded Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 200.” This law provides for the incentives to all government and private health institutions with rooming-in and breastfeeding practices and for other purposes.
As stipulated in Section 3 of the law, lactation stations shall be required and must conform to the following minimum requirements–that they are private, clean, sanitary, and well-ventilated rooms or areas in the workplace or public places where nursing mothers can wash up, breastfeed or express their milk comfortably and store this afterward. The law is also a requirement in all enclosed or confined areas such as schools, public transportation terminals, shopping malls, and the like must also have lactation stations.
The need for a lactation room is designed for breastfeeding mothers who needed a private, safe, and clean place to express breast milk. The lactation room cannot be a bathroom because toilet areas aren’t a sanitary location to pump breast milk that a baby will consume. So when designing a lactation room the most important thing is that it must be private and must protect the breastfeeding mom from being seen by co-workers or the general public while pumping breast milk.
At the moment, there are still a huge number of buildings in Davao City which have not complied with the requirement for lactation rooms. These are the prime targets of this campaign and hence, this early, must begin their lactation room policy and plans.
