Regulation for the implementation, adaptation and use of breastfeeding support rooms in public and private workspace

The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Public Health issued the Interministerial Agreement No. MDT-MSP-2024-002, on September 12, 2024, which regulates the implementation, adequacy, and use of breastfeeding support rooms in workplaces, hereinafter the “Regulation”. We highlight the following:

• Employers must grant permission for the extraction of breast milk for 20 minutes every 2 hours, to women who having finished their breastfeeding period have decided to extend the practice until their children reach 24 months of age.
• Employers who have 50 or more female employees of childbearing age or breastfeeding and who are working on-site, must implement a permanent breastfeeding support room.
• Employers who do not comply with the above, and who have at least one breastfeeding woman, must implement temporary breastfeeding support rooms.
• Women fertile age goes from 15 to 49 years old.
• Employers must register the implementation, adequacy, and use of breastfeeding support rooms in the Unified Labor System (“SUT” by its Spanish acronym).
• Permanent breastfeeding support rooms must provide at least: a bathroom next to the breastfeeding room, a refrigerator, a sink, a minimum space of two square meters per user, and periodic cleaning of the room.
• Temporary lactation rooms may be in spaces for other uses, such as offices, if they have the minimum infrastructure necessary for the adequate extraction of milk or for breastfeeding.
• The Regulation overturns Ministerial Agreements No. 00000183 of March 11, 2011, and No. 003-2019 of April 8, 2019, that contained the applicable rules for the implementation and operation of breastfeeding support rooms in the public and private sectors.