I have encountered a few reasons, both from my own experience working and pumping for my first child and now as an LLLL, why moms may be trying to pump so much:

1) They believe, sometimes correctly, that pumping at work will lower their supply and want to induce oversupply so they have a "cushion."

2) They (sometimes subconciously) project their anxiety about leaving baby and going back to work on having a huge stash in case of "emergencies" that will probably never happen -- car accident or blizzard on the way to pick baby up, for instance.

3) They think bottles should be 5 to 8 oz like formula.  Even if educated otherwise, many moms continue to insist that 3 oz can't be enough because baby is x pounds.  They've also been told that babies take more from the bottle than from the breast and will need to pump a lot to avoid formula.

4) They have heard, in my own unfortunate experience very rightfully so, that daycare overfeeds.  Especially if baby won't take a pacifier or doesn't nap well in the group setting, daycare will often give baby a bottle rather than try other methods to stop the crying.  For me personally, I had a small baby (poor breastfeeding management early on not related to pumping too much) and the daycare had the director tell me that my daughter was "starving" and I needed to give more.  At the peak I was giving 21 oz in 8 hours, and don't ask what it took to pump that to avoid formula, particularly when my daughter started to nurse less to even out her 24 hour intake.  At first, it was mostly freezer stash.

5) Plain old misinformation.  My IBCLC was still, as of 2 1/2 years ago when my second was born, telling moms that they needed to give 2.67 times body weight divided by number of feedings.  I had a friend whose 9 month old daughter was only nursing 4 times a day when they were together, and she believed she needed to give 9 oz bottles every 4 hours.

6)  They know they'll need to travel and it won't be practical to send milk home during the trip, so they try to get a huge stash ahead of time.

Some of these can be corrected just by education, others are broader issues related to living in a formula culture that is not educated about and does not value breastfeeding.

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