The New Hampshire Senate has passed a bill that will require all but the smallest New Hampshire employers to provide reasonable accommodations to women before, during and after pregnancy.

Senate Bill 69 requires businesses with more than five employees provide a safe place to express breast milk and a place to do it for a year after childbirth.

The bill has bipartisan support. In fact, at an earlier virtual hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee, no one spoke in opposition to the legislation, and those who expressed concerns mainly worried that the bill did not go far enough.

Currently, federal law requires firms with over 50 employees provide a safe area to express milk, but that leaves a quarter of women unprotected, said Sen. Becky Whitley, D-Concord, the bill’s prime sponsor.

The bill is even more important at this time she said, since the pandemic “disproportionately impacts the working mother.” This would make it easier for women to continue to work, she said.

Construction of such rooms, or separate pods, could cost as much as $8,000, according to the bill’s fiscal note, though the law would allow employers to use existing space, even if it generally is used for something else. All that is required is that the space is clean, secure and private and that it’s not a bathroom and has, at the minimum, an outlet and a chair.

In addition to bringing the employee threshold down to five, the bill also would expand on federal law by providing a schedule — 30 minutes every three hours to lactate, though that could overlap with lunch and coffee breaks.

A companion bill, SB 68 — which would require reasonable accommodations for a woman during pregnancy and after childbirth, as is already required under federal law for companies with 15 or more employees — was held by the committee to consider tweaking its language.

— BOB SANDERS