BILL NUMBER: S371

SPONSOR: HOYLMAN
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the public health law, in relation to requiring human
breast milk banks, companies and cooperatives to comply with certain
standards and to provide for education and support of certain breast-
feeding mothers

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

To establish a regulatory, educational, and lactation support system for
breast milk banks in New York State.

 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

2505-c. Breast milk banks.

1. Procuring, processing, storing, distributing and using human milk for
the purpose of infant human consumption from a nonprofit human breast
              

milk bank is a rendering of a service and not the sale of human milk for
profit or financial gain.

2. A hospital or organization that collects, processes, stores, or
distributes human milk either from a mother exclusively for her own
child or from a mother to nourish a child other than her own shall
comply with the standards, ethical practices and guidelines for collect-
ing, processing, storing, or distributing human milk of the Human Milk
Banking Association of North America unless the department approves
alternate standards.

3. No screening test is required to be performed on human milk collected
from a mother exclusively for her own child.

4. A for-profit human breast milk bank, company, or cooperative that
provides financial compensation or shares in stock for procuring, proc-
essing, distributing, or using human milk for the purpose of human
consumption must comply with the standards, ethical practices and guide-
lines of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America or more
stringent guidelines for safe procurement, processing, storing, or
distribution of human breast milk.

5. (a) A for-profit human breast milk bank, company, or cooperative
working with breastfeeding mothers in this state can only accept milk
from a mother who is at least one hundred and eighty days postpartum.

(b) A for-profit human breast milk bank, company, or cooperative operat-
ing in this state cannot remit payment to a participating mother until
at least twenty-eight days after receipt and acceptance of the expressed
human breast milk.

6. A for-profit human breast milk bank, company, or cooperative shall
work with local, community-based lactation support groups to provide
ongoing breastfeeding education and lactation support for its partic-
ipating mothers to ensure that the needs of the nursing children of
participating mothers are the priority and are adequately nourished by
the mother's own breast milk.

7. A for-profit human breast milk bank, company, or cooperative operat-
ing in this state shall ensure that, at a minimum, fifty percent of the
human breast milk produced by participating mothers in a specific local-
ity is distributed to hospitals in this state for the hospital's neona-
tal intensive care unit or to local nonprofit human breast milk banks to
provide human breast milk for vulnerable premature or ill infants or for
distribution to foster parents or adoptive parents in this state who
wish to provide breast milk for their foster or adoptive newborn or
infant children.

8. A for-profit human breast milk bank operating in this state shall
conduct an annual audit, at its own expense, that clearly demonstrates
whether or not the distribution of breast milk collected complies with
the requirements of subdivision six of this section.  The for-profit
human breast milk bank shall submit a report with the findings of the
audit to the department no later than January thirty-first, two thousand
seventeen and every January thirty-first annually thereafter.

9. A for-profit human breast milk bank that does not comply with the
provisions of subdivision eight of this section shall be responsible for
a fine to be determined by the commissioner. The comptroller shall cred-
it the money from such fines to the department for use in infant mortal-
ity prevention projects.

10. The provisions of this section shall not apply to mother-to-mother
milk sharing groups.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

Currently there is not a regulatory, educational, nor lactation support
system for breast milk banks established by the State of New York. The
regulation of human breast milk banks is critical to ensure the avail-
ability, quality control, and auditing of human breast milk.  An educa-
tional mechanism is critical to ensure that the public is properly
informed about the benefits that breast milk provides for the human
growth and developmental benefits of infants throughout the development
of the first few years of a young child's life. An educational mechanism
is also critical to ensure proper methods of providing human breast milk
to such children by means of direct breast feeding or nursing, wet nurs-
ing, collection and bottle feeding, schedule and timing of feeding, and
any other necessary information regarding the use of, acquiring of,
distribution of, and ingestion of human breast milk for infants through-
out the optimal period for which such human breast milk is beneficial
for optimal growth and development of infants and young children. A
support system is critical to ensuring the proper and optimal practice
of breast feeding or nursing, as well as encouraging and providing
support for nursing mothers, breast milk providers, and surrogate
parents who provide breast milk from breast milk banks to their foster,
guardianship, or adopted child.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

S.0483 of 2019-2020 (Hoylman): Died in Health
A.2866 of 2019-2020 (Solages): Died in Health
S.0047 of 2017-18 (Hoylman): Died in Health
S.7569 of 2016 (Hoylman): Died in Health
A.8512 of 2015-2016 (Solages): Died in Health

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

To be determined

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the first of January next succeeding the
date upon which it shall have become a law.