August, if you didn’t know, is National Breastfeeding Month. Shocking, right? Why do we need a month dedicated to supporting and promoting breastfeeding? Well, when you realize that only 33% of babies in the US are exclusively breastfed through the age of three months old, you start wondering why something that seems so basic is very rarely employed by new mothers in our country.
I must admit I never gave much though to breastfeeding until I became pregnant with my daughter. When I began to learn about the health benefits of breastfeeding, going that route seemed like a no-brainer. The benefits of breastfeeding are numerous. According to the Centers for Disease Control, breast-fed children are more resistant to disease and infection early in life, they are less likely to contract a number of diseases later in life, including juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, and cancer before the age of 15. Benefits also extend to mothers: those who breastfeed are less likely to develop osteoporosis later in life, are able to lose weight gained during pregnancy more easily and have a lower risk of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer. The mental health benefits of emotional bonding between mother and child achieved through the breastfeeding experience are immeasurable.
Breast milk also happens to be free. Yet despite the economic and health benefits of breastfeeding, the rates of breastfeeding in the US remain abysmally low in comparison with other industrialized nations…and even in comparison with developing countries. Who is to blame?
• Employers: If you are a working mom, exclusively breastfeeding means you have to pump (sometimes several times a day) while you are away from your baby. Which means you need the time, the appropriate facilities, and a place to store your milk. Employer with 50 employees or less are not required to conform to a federal law mandating employers to provide reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for one year after the child's birth. Even with the federal mandates, many employers do not support a woman’s choice to breastfeed. A friend of mine who is a nurse recently shared that taking time off to pump during a 12-hour shift was frowned upon by her supervisor. A NURSE!
• Physicians: My doctor definitely did not encourage me to breastfeed my daughter. He didn’t tell me not to, but it was never emphasized, nor were the benefits clearly expressed throughout my pregnancy. I realize that was my specific experience, but I am guessing it is the experience of many other women. We definitely need doctors to be cheerleaders for breastfeeding.
• Lack of Community Support: About half of the states in our country actually deem breastfeeding in public to be indecent exposure. Luckily, in 2008 SC joined 27 other states in exempting breastfeeding from indecent exposure laws. Last year, the city of Portland, Maine even went so far as to place life sized cardboard cut-outs of women breastfeeding in public places to help build awareness of their recently passed law.
• Pure Economics: There is a visible, hard-core contingency of women in the US who are adamant breastfeeders, like the women so amazingly parodied by Maggie Gyllenhaal in the movie Away We Go. In my experience, these women are middle or upper middle class and actually have time to be militant about something like breastfeeding. If you are a single working mom, adding breastfeeding (and pumping) to your already full schedule is close to impossible.
Until our country places more emphasis, through policy, on our youngest citizens, it's going to be tough for moms everywhere to whip ‘em out.
-Cate Ryba