Sounds like there is a US/UK difference in attitudes towards pumping, as
Magda & Heather suggest, but I think there's more than that going on. I
wonder if there is a correlation between when/where women gave birth (what
decade? what cultural milieu?) and attitudes towards pumping - anyone know
of any studies?

My children were born in 1977 & 1981. For whatever it's worth, I find the
idea of pumping utterly repugnant - only the idea of *myself* pumping or
expressing, not others! Don't know whether it's because the only pump I ever
saw or knew about in those days was the old bicycle-horn type, which when I
tried it was both wicked painful and completely ineffective. Or maybe it's
related to being a crunchy-granola nature-girl, who's just automatically
opposed to "stuff". But surely in those days, the whole idea of pumping was
much less common - you just never heard about it. I'm not particularly
prudish or easily grossed out, but the idea of expressing my breasts just
gives me the creeps. Must be how some other women feel about breastfeeding!

I had a lot of problems breastfeeding my first, and looking back I can see
that a good pump might well have fixed things up just dandy, but I didn't
know anything then. Even if one had been available, my response to the idea
is "yuck!" (a strong "yuck", mind you!). Even now, pumping is not usually
the first "solution" I think of in many situations, and although now that I
am in private practice I can see that becoming a pump rental station would
bring in *lots* more money, I just plain old don't want to do it. (So I have
to send them all to my colleague and competitor - if either one of us was
good at thinking in those terms! - Diane W.)

Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC Ithaca NY

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