SESSION WATCH
Superseded — its companion passed HOUSE · SESSION 2026

No. CS/HB 503

Drowning Prevention Education
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SPONSOR
Health Care Facilities & Systems Subcommittee; Eskamani; Kendall
FILED BY
Anna Eskamani — District 42, Democrat [search donations]
Kim Kendall — District 18, Republican [search donations]
EFFECTIVE
7/1/2026
COMPANION
SB 428 — CS/HB 503 was set aside and its companion carried the policy

Filed under Healthcare.

PROVIDED SUMMARY

Drowning Prevention Education; Requires DOH to develop educational materials on drowning prevention safety measures & safe bathing practices for specified purposes; provides requirements for such materials; requires hospitals, birth centers, & home birth providers to provide educational materials to new parents & caregivers as part of their postpartum education & care; requires childbirth educators to provide informational materials to parents or caregivers receiving childbirth education from them.

Full bill text →

Plain English Summary

AI-GENERATED
Requires new-parent drowning prevention education at hospitals, birth centers, and childbirth classes.

The Department of Health must create educational materials on drowning prevention and safe bathing practices for new parents, covering infant drowning risks, water safety measures, and safe bathing practices in the home.

Hospitals, birth centers, and home birth providers must give these materials to parents or caregivers of newborns as part of their standard postpartum education and care.

Childbirth educators must also hand out these materials to every parent or caregiver enrolled in the childbirth education classes they teach, with no exceptions listed in the bill.

Hospitals' existing postpartum education duties, covering safe sleep and infant eye disorders, are reorganized into a numbered list that now also requires the new drowning prevention materials.

KEY PROVISIONS
§ 1 Requires DOH to create drowning prevention materials for new parents majors. 383.3363(1)

AIDOH must develop educational materials on drowning prevention and safe bathing practices, covering infant drowning risk data, water safety and supervision measures, and evidence-based safe bathing practices, for distribution during postpartum and childbirth education.

“shall develop educational materials on drowning prevention safety measures and safe bathing practices to be distributed to parents or caregivers” bill text, line 23 →
§ 2 Requires hospitals, birth centers, and home birth providers to distribute the materials majors. 383.3363(2)

AIEach hospital, birth center, and home birth provider offering maternity, prenatal, and newborn services must give the DOH-developed drowning prevention materials to parents or caregivers of a newborn as part of postpartum education and care.

“shall provide the educational materials developed under subsection (1) to the parents or caregivers of a newborn as part of its postpartum education” bill text, line 42 →
§ 3 Requires childbirth educators to hand out the materials too majors. 383.3363(3)

AIChildbirth educators must provide the DOH-developed drowning prevention and safe bathing materials to every parent or caregiver receiving childbirth education from them.

“Childbirth educators shall provide the educational materials developed under subsection (1) to the parents or caregivers receiving childbirth education” bill text, line 46 →
§ 4 Adds the drowning materials to birth centers' required postpartum followup care moderates. 383.318(4)(j)

AIBirth centers' existing postpartum evaluation and followup care checklist must now also include providing the drowning prevention and safe bathing materials developed by DOH.

“Provision of the educational materials on drowning prevention safety measures and safe bathing practices developed by the Department of Health” bill text, line 55 →
§ 5 Folds the same requirement into hospitals' postpartum education duty moderates. 395.1053

AIHospitals' postpartum education duty is restated as a numbered list of required content: safe sleep information, the eye-disorder pamphlet, and now also the new drowning prevention and safe bathing materials.

“provide each parent with postpartum education on the care of newborns, which must include all of the following” bill text, line 61 →
TIMELINE
3/13/2026
Died in Rules, companion bill(s) passed, see SB 428 (Ch. 2026-38 )
3/4/2026
Received
3/4/2026
Referred to Rules
3/4/2026
In Messages
3/4/2026
CS passed; YEAS 108, NAYS 1
3/4/2026
Read 3rd time
3/4/2026
Added to Third Reading Calendar
3/4/2026
Read 2nd time
2/26/2026
Bill added to Special Order Calendar (3/4/2026)
2/25/2026
Added to Second Reading Calendar
2/25/2026
Bill released to House Calendar
2/25/2026
Reported out of Health & Human Services Committee
2/24/2026
Favorable by Health & Human Services Committee
2/20/2026
Added to Health & Human Services Committee agenda
2/16/2026
Now in Health & Human Services Committee
2/16/2026
Referred to Health & Human Services Committee
2/13/2026
1st Reading (Committee Substitute 1)
2/13/2026
CS Filed
2/13/2026
Laid on Table under Rule 7.18(a)
2/12/2026
Reported out of Health Care Facilities & Systems Subcommittee
2/12/2026
Favorable with CS by Health Care Facilities & Systems Subcommittee
2/10/2026
PCS added to Health Care Facilities & Systems Subcommittee agenda
1/13/2026
1st Reading (Original Filed Version)
11/24/2025
Now in Health Care Facilities & Systems Subcommittee
11/24/2025
Referred to Health & Human Services Committee
11/24/2025
Referred to Health Care Budget Subcommittee
11/24/2025
Referred to Health Care Facilities & Systems Subcommittee
11/20/2025
Filed
22 EARLIER →
STATUTES IT CHANGES
s. 383.3363
+214 / −0
s. 383.318
+24 / −0
s. 395.1053
+44 / −16
STAFF ANALYSES