PAC/LAC supported the following legislation in 2007. For a complete update of bills related to maternal and child health, see the legislative update.

SB 22
Author:           Senator Carole Migden
Topic:             Breastfeeding
Status:           Chaptered into Law 10/11/07         
This bill will provide that the State Department of Public Health shall recommend (amended from “require”) that general acute care hospitals and special hospitals that provide maternity care, and that have exclusive patient breastfeeding rates in the lowest 25%, as described, offer a minimum of eight hours of training to appropriate administrative and supervisory staff on hospital policies and recommendations that promote exclusive breastfeeding, as prescribed.  This bill will also require the department not later than July 1, 2008, to begin expansion of the breast-feeding peer counseling program at local agency WIC sites. It will further require the department to streamline and simplify existing Medi-Cal program procedures to improve access to lactation supports and breast pumps among Medi-Cal recipients. The appropriation of $2,250,000 from the General Fund to the State Department of Public Health was pulled from the bill.

AB 741
Author:           Assemblymember Karen Bass
Topic:             Infant Mortality: Interpregnancy Care
Status:           Vetoed by the Governor 10/13/07
This bill would have required the State Department of Public Health to develop a 5-year (time amended) demonstration program that would offer interpregnancy care, as defined, to women who enroll in the program and meet specified criteria, in an effort to improve the child spacing and adverse pregnancy outcomes for women who have had a previous very low birth weight delivery, as specified. The program would have commenced March 1, 2008, would have operated in at least three community-based organizations or service providers (amended from two hospitals), and would have provided specified services to eligible participants, including primary health care and social services. This bill would also have required the community-based organizations or service providers to contract with an external evaluator to evaluate the effectiveness of the program using specified criteria, to submit the evaluation to the department on or before September 1, 2013, and would have required the department, by March 1, 2014, to submit a report on the program's progress to the Legislature, as specified.

Important Legislative Resources

California State Legislature

Legislative Analyst’s Office