The room was already popular with South Central Public Health District staff and clients who need a quiet place to nurse their newborns.

Now, shortly after remodeling its Twin Falls office to create a better room for new mothers to nurse in, officials are looking into creating more "comfort rooms" in other offices around the eight counties the district serves.

It's all part of becoming a "Breastfeeding Friendly Employer," a designation handed down by the state to businesses who provide at least six weeks of unpaid maternity leave, a clean and private space to nurse and a policy that gives employees the right to use break times to nurse their infants. The designation would help further efforts to encourage more mothers to breastfeed for longer, said Helen Hopkins, breastfeeding program coordinator for the district.

"We do still tend to be kind of low with our rates here in the Magic Valley," Hopkins said Wednesday. But education, she said, could fix that. "The more you know, the better you can do."

The rates differ, depending whom you consult. Data from the health district's Women, Infants and Children program shows 74 percent of mothers enrolled in the service breastfeed their infants at birth. The Idaho Pregnancy Risk Assessment Tracking System says 85 percent of mothers across the district nurse their children at birth, just shy of the state average: 88.5 percent.

But the one thing they show is that few mothers keep the practice up for long. Only 21 percent of WIC mothers still breastfeed their 6-month-old babies. And though national data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention places Idaho among some of the better states when it comes to nursing, it shows only 23 percent of Idaho mothers still breastfeed one year after their child's birth.

That, Hopkins said, is a sad mistake.

"It's so perfectly suited to the baby's system," Hopkins said, describing the benefits of breast milk. "Just the way they metabolize and use the milk helps them be able to use foods better."

Breastfeeding for one year, she said, can mean a child with less food allergies. They get fewer ear infections, and face a lower risk of obesity and diabetes. And mothers benefit too.

"The hormones that help to produce breast milk provide a lot of protection for the women as well," Hopkins said.

That's protection from infections, allergies, osteoporosis and breast cancer - all because hormones are released by the simple act of nursing, Hopkins said. The sad thing, WIC program coordinator Maggi Machala said, is mothers don't realize breastfeeding produces more milk as well. They often quit early because they feel like they can't supply the milk or the baby has had enough of it.

The district works with local groups such as the La Leche League and St. Luke's Magic Valley Regional Medical Center consultants to educate new mothers, Machala said. And she'd like to do more - perhaps restart a peer-counseling group active in the past. The catch, she said, is mothers have to be caught early on.

"Generally, if you don't start in the hospital, you're not going to start."

Nate Poppino can be reached at 735-3237 or npoppino@magicvalley.com.