Pedro da Quitéria Faria analyses the government's new breastfeeding exemption proposal

Pedro da Quitéria Faria, a partner in Antas da Cunha Ecija's Labour and Social Security Practice Area, is one of the experts interviewed by ECO in the article "Government's new breastfeeding proposal risks generating doubts and conflicts in companies".

At issue is the labour reform bill submitted to Parliament, which resumes the requirement for a six-monthly medical declaration for workers who benefit from time off for breastfeeding, but with a different wording from that presented in the July 2025 preliminary draft.

Pedro da Quitéria Faria admits that the new wording is likely to lead to differences of interpretation. Although he believes that the worker must submit medical declarations every six months, he recognises that the wording adopted can be read in a more restrictive way, i.e. as imposing only a single document renewal. In his view, this represents a step backwards in the technical quality of the legislative text compared to the previous draft. In his words, the new wording was "perfectly unnecessary" and it was enough to keep the original wording to avoid any ambiguity.

The lawyer also identifies a significant change in the type of document required: the change from "medical certificate" to "medical declaration" points, in his opinion, to a possible lightening of documentary evidence, with the declaration being a broader and less solemn instrument, sufficient to confirm a simple fact such as that a worker is breastfeeding.

Read the full article here.