Of Milk and Moms

Of Milk and Moms

Sara R. Benson: Of Milk and Moms

In the months leading up to the birth of my daughter, I daydreamed of how the first few months with my beautiful baby would fly by. We would stroll through the park and stop casually at a bench for a bit. My daughter would glance lovingly into my eyes as she ate and then we would finish our lap around the park and settle down for a nice afternoon nap cuddled in an embrace. As you can guess, things didn?t quite turn out as I had imagined. We had our fair share of breastfeeding issues, including tongue tie, low milk production, and a very sleepy baby. But one problem I did not have was a lack of time. I was not rushed to go back to work. I was able to feed my daughter, pump, feed my daughter again, and take a nap as needed. As a visiting professor with a baby born in early May, I had the entire summer to work with her on our little eating problem.

Other moms, particularly in the United States, are not so lucky. Most Americans know that our maternity and paternity policies rank right up there with Liberia, but what we don?t seem to understand is just how much harm that can actually do to the health of our nation. Slews of studies extol the virtues of breastfeeding. It is good for the psychological well-being of both mother and child, and it prevents allergies and illnesses in children, including reducing the rates of ear infections, eczema, pneumonia, asthma, type 1 diabetes, and sudden infant death syndrome. Most folks would agree, based both on common sense and on the data, that breastfeeding a baby is important. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding a baby exclusively until the age of six months.

Breastfeeding is cheaper, too. I don?t even want to look back at how much money we spent on expensive baby formula due to my low milk supply. Breastfeeding will apparently save the nation money, too: if a majority of new moms were able to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months of their child?s life, the United States could save up to $13 billion in health-care and related costs per year. However, in my mind (and based on my own experience), the number one predictor of how long a woman will breastfeed is how long she has to work on it with her baby at home. In other words, a lengthy paid maternity leave will lead to women breastfeeding longer.

I am not insisting that breastfeeding is the only way to feed an infant. However, when a mom wants nothing more than to continue breastfeeding her child, but finds that pumping at her job is not working because she cannot get enough milk without her baby present?that is a damn shame.

Shorter maternity leaves, of six weeks or less, make it three times more likely that the mother will quit breastfeeding, as compared to moms who can stay at home longer. This should be no surprise. I spent many mornings sitting in the free breastfeeding clinic in my community hospital or the nursing consultant?s office trying to eliminate any barriers to breastfeeding still present after my daughter?s tongue clip surgery. I was exhausted, worried, anxious, and troubled, but I still had the luxury of time. Without it, I certainly would have stopped breastfeeding even sooner than I did?when my daughter was about four months old. It seems that an infant works up to eating a more stable amount of milk when he or she reaches the age of about six weeks, so moms who can stay home for at least that period of time (in my opinion) would be in better shape. But, from a physical and emotional standpoint, this still seems much too short. At just six weeks old, many moms already have to begin daycare. I couldn?t fathom leaving my tiny daughter with a stranger at such a young age. I was still too tired to go back to work, and daily naps were essential. Without them, how could a new mom continue to keep her milk supply levels up?

The logical solution is to provide women paid maternity leave to ease the stress of returning to work. Under the current Family Medical Leave Act, which only applies to companies with fifty or more employees, women can take up to four months? leave upon the birth of their child if they have worked at a company for one year. However, the leave under the FMLA is unpaid. Many parents, especially in this economy, cannot afford to take unpaid leave. This, of course, leads to more moms foregoing breastfeeding altogether or breastfeeding for a shorter period of time.

As conversations about national health care become commonplace, so should pressure on politicians to support national paid parental leave. In states like California, those conversations have already taken place. The state plan takes money out of each worker?s paycheck in a system similar to Social Security, in order to permit new moms to take up to six weeks of partially paid maternity leave. Six weeks should be the bare minimum and leave should be fully paid, but this is a step in the right direction. In order to save millions in health-care costs later, which even those who may never have children can agree is a worthy goal, we must provide an environment nationwide where working moms can breastfeed longer and without interruption. For the sake of the future, Americans need to step up and support working parents.