It's Time to Put the Breast Pump Away

The mommy wars should be fought over leave time, not formula
By Katherine Thompson,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 3, 2009 11:48 AM CDT
It's Time to Put the Breast Pump Away
Breast pumps, by their connection to the breast feeding vs. formula debate, have become a focal point of the cultural parenting wars.   (Flickr)

We may have taken the "breast is best" argument too far, writes Judith Warner on her New York Times blog. The evidence for the superhuman benefits of breast milk over formula isn't so clear-cut, after all, and it's not worth it to guilt women into pumping when the real battlefield—the need for longer maternity leave—remains largely ignored.

Women should stop fighting the formula vs. milk battle, argues Warner, and start campaigning for better benefits for working moms: "Why, as a society, have we privileged the magic elixir of maternal milk over actual maternal contact, denying the vast, vast majority of mothers the kind of extended maternity leave that would make them physically present for their babies?"
(More breast milk stories.)

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