Feminism and breastfeeding

After I wrote my post early today, a friend directed me to a new article by Jacqueline H. Wolf in the most recent issue of Signs, titled “What Feminists Can Do for Breastfeeding and What Breastfeeding Can Do for Feminists.” This is a great article that makes different but well taken points from the article I cite below. The emphasis of this article is not the questionable research methods leading to widespread breastfeeding advocacy but the interesting fact that although breastfeeding advocacy and ostensible support for breastfeeding is so pervasive on paper, the reality is that numbers of women actually breastfeeding in the United States remain low. This, Jacqueline Wolf argues, is due to a lack of actual support for breastfeeding women. This is a problem that deserves attention, and feminists should be heading up the charge to support women who choose to breastfeed. First, I want to elaborate a bit further on the argument in the previous post, and then I will whole-heartedly agree with some of what Wolf says.

Wolf cites many of the well-known studies that declare breastfeeding’s benefits for mother and child, and she makes the important point that long-term breastfeeding (about a year) is often necessary for those benefits to be seen. There still remains the problem of responsible science (which Wolf does acknowledge). Yes, children who are breastfed often have fewer health problems and grow to become healthier adults, but it is also true that (as mentioned below) women who choose to breastfeed based on health benefits are likely to make many other health-conscious choices for their children, all of which work together to contribute to a child’s health. Also, statistically women of higher socioeconomic status and higher education are more likely to breastfeed—those factors also contribute to a person’s physical and emotional health. To make truly informed choices, women need to be aware of these variables.

To agree with Wolf’s larger argument, feminists do need to act to help create more support for women who are breastfeeding or want to breastfeed. More lactation consultants should be available, and insurance companies should cover those services for new mothers. Pediatricians should support and encourage the decisions of mothers to breastfeed and should help women to understand the realities of “supply and demand” milk production. Many women believe inaccurately that they have low milk supplies (a real but actually pretty rare condition) and feel as if they can’t breastfeed because doctors fail to adequately explain to them the physiology of breastfeeding and the many methods of increasing milk production. Employers should recognize the importance of a woman’s choice to breastfeed and should make workplaces conducive to breastfeeding and pumping mothers, offering options like on-site daycare, pumping rooms, flexible hours, and paid maternity leave to support breastfeeding mothers. (Problems exist with the ways these policies are used already, though, as more women than men take advantage of part-time work and family leave, reinforcing gender polarity—it’s happening in European countries with such national policies.) Also, as legislation already protects women’s rights to breastfeed in public, changes in cultural attitudes need to follow so that women can actually feel comfortable nursing their children when the need arises without being ridiculed or kicked out of public places.

Finally, the formula companies who say “Breast is best” while they pass out free samples of formula to expectant mothers, should not have as much financial, and as a result, political sway as they do.

Whew—that’s as much as I can handle today. I’m sure there is more to come as this topic is of undeniable personal and social importance. Thanks so much to the women of iVillage who are reading and commenting on this topic here and on the message board.