MINISTERS are considering new laws to give women a right to breastfeed their babies in public and take statutory breaks at work to suckle their infants.

The move follows research showing that only a minority of new mothers breastfeed their babies for the full six months recommended by the World Health Organisation.

It would become an offence for anyone to stop a woman from breastfeeding in public, a change that has already been enacted in Scotland. It follows complaints from mothers that they have been accused of indecency and barred from breastfeeding when they have attempted to do so in public.

Employers would also have to allow mothers to take breaks each working day to breast feed. In France women with a baby under 12 months are entitled to two 30-minute breaks a day. In Italy, new mothers can take two one-hour rest periods.

The proposals are central planks of a campaign by the five royal colleges of medicine, nursing and midwifery to which health minister Andy Burnham has signed up. He said he backed the campaign for a new policy on breast feeding in public and a new law on work breaks.

Caroline Flint, the public health minister, has already had a meeting with the coalition, which includes Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and will address doctors and midwives at the launch of its manifesto on Wednesday.

“All the evidence says that ‘nothing is fitter than a breastfed nipper’,” said Flint. “We’ve made good progress over the last 30 years encouraging more and more women to breastfeed. But we cannot be complacent. There are communities where breastfeeding rates remain low, adding to the health inequalities gap. We need to do more to close this and to ensure babies receive the best form of nutrition and to give them the best start in life.”

According to official figures, only 21% of British women breastfeed for up to the recommended period of six months.

Young mothers are particularly reluctant to breastfeed. A television advertising campaign will be launched this week by the Department of Health to encourage more mothers aged 25 and under to suckle their infants.

Rosie Dodds, policy and research officer for the National Childbirth Trust, said the statistics would improve if the government made it an offence to ask women to stop breastfeeding in public.

Lindsey Black, a 29-year-old mother of two from Southport, Merseyside, was asked to leave a branch of McDonald’s while breastfeeding her baby daughter in the restaurant. After twice being told to stop breastfeeding or leave, Black was forced to breastfeed in the lavatories.

“The older generation tend to tut-tut. I am not doing anything wrong — you do not see much,” said Black. “It is not as if I am lifting my top and exposing myself. The public need to be more understanding.”

The breastfeeding manifesto, which has been signed by more than 180 politicians including Margaret Hodge, the trade and industry minister, and Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, says returning to work is the most common reason for women stopping breastfeeding.

The manifesto says: “We call on the government to legislate for breastfeeding breaks for women at work, in line with other European countries.”

Alison Baum, co-ordinator of the Breastfeeding Manifesto, said: “By ensuring that employers provide appropriate work schedules and places to allow women to continue breastfeeding, women could breastfeed for longer.

“Employers who are breast-feeding-friendly benefit in the long run because the babies of those mothers will end up having fewer bugs and suffering less illness. The parents will, therefore, have fewer absences.”

If companies had on-site crãches, women would take a break to breastfeed their child but, more commonly, they would express milk and store it for their baby to drink later.

Natalie Marshall, a mother of two from Wiltshire, is an IT support worker for a large manufacturing company and is allowed to takes two breastfeeding breaks a day. Marshall, who is still breastfeeding her two-year-old daughter and breastfed her three-year-old son until he was 14 months, said all companies should be as sympathetic as her employer.

“Those breaks were absolutely essential and without them I would not have managed to keep breastfeeding,” she said.

“It did add a bit of stress to the rest of the team because when I was having a break there were fewer people to respond to urgent problems, but they were all really supportive.”

Marshall expresses milk in a room provided by the occupational health department of the company. Her employer also provides a fridge for her to store it.

A legal entitlement to breastfeeding breaks is opposed, however, by the Confederation of British Industry and the Federation of Small Businesses.

McDonald’s said breastfeeding was allowed within its restaurants and that staff had been made aware of this policy.

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