Know Your Rights

Pregnancy Accommodations Laws

Pregnancy Accommodations Guide for Employees and Employers

SHB 1930 :    

Effective July 28, 2019, employers with 15 or more employees must provide a private lactation space for pumping employees that is not a bathroom. These protections extend for two years and thereby exceed the protections offered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by one year.

Wash. Rev. Code § 49.60.30(g) provides that it is the right of a mother to breastfeed her child in any place of public resort, accommodations, assemblage or amusement. (2009 Wash. Laws, Chap. 164,HB 1596)

Wash. Rev. Code § 49.60.215 states that it is an unfair practice for any person to discriminate against a mother breastfeeding her child in any place of public resort, accommodations, assemblage or amusement. (2009 Wash. Laws, Chap. 164,HB 1596)

Wash. Rev. Code § 9A.88.010 (2001) states that the act of breastfeeding or expressing breast milk is not indecent exposure. (HB 1590)

Wash. Rev. Code § 43.70.640 (2001) allows any employer, governmental and private, to use the designation of "infant-friendly" on its promotional materials if the employer follows certain requirements. (2001 Wash. Laws, Chap. 88)

Wash. Laws, Chap. 41 (2018) concerns midwifery and doula services for incarcerated women. Doula services may include, but are not limited to: Support and assistance during labor and childbirth; prenatal and postpartum education; breastfeeding assistance; parenting education; and support in the event that a woman has been or will become separated from her child.