I am not prepared to slog through the 500 posts in response to Judith
Warner's column 'Ban the breast pump'. For our purposes I suggest trying to
find common ground with her and perhaps one of the 500 who has written, has
done so already.  For example, she rightly points out how pumps contribute
to the reductionist view of parenting in which breastmilk is a proxy for a
mother.  
Some may think me brutal but I believe we are ducking the real question when
we let ourselves get diverted into a discussion of which pump is the best
for a particular mother, rather than addressing the issue of why a pump is
in the picture at all. Those of you who have not worked outside the US may
not be able to imagine how little gadgetry is involved in breastfeeding in
places where it is assumed that young children are with their mothers for
many months.  Pumps are for exceptional situations, not a normal part of
getting breastmilk into a baby.

We can't expect the pump industry to put its weight behind real protection
for breastfeeding because separation of mothers from babies is that
industry's bread and butter. If anyone is going to lead the way to getting
proper maternity leave, it will have to be someone who understands that
breastfeeding is about a lot more than the milk (aka 'the part you can weigh
and measure').  Mothers know that we are selling them and their children
short if we accept the notion that being fed the milk is the same as having
them actually be there.

That breastpumps are the counterpart of the artificial arm and hand you can
buy to wrap around your baby to get it to sleep alone was brought home for
me at a talk at the VELB conference in Vienna last fall. The talk was about
gadgets for babies, and I realized that giving a baby a fake arm to rest
against is about the same as giving its mother a contraption to strap onto
her nipples and remove her milk from her breasts, while the person who would
happily be performing that function is somewhere else for no discernible reason.

The following is excerpted from Judith Warner's column. I don't differ with
her on these points. 
"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?

Why do we keep sticking our heads in the sand, putting all the burdens of
our half-changed society on women – their “choices,” their “priorities,”
their bodies – instead of figuring out reasonable ways to make our new
family lives work?

Why do we, as women, accept all the guilt and pressure about breast-feeding
that comes our way instead of standing up for what we need in order, in the
broadest possible sense, to nourish and sustain ourselves and our families?" 

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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