Dear all:

I'm sure I have posted on this before, but since it is coming up again, I'll explain why I don't like the term efficiency being applied to babies.  Babies are human BEings.  They need our love, attention, and care.  

Perhaps it is because I live in Manhattan, where you can spend $5,000 to coach your toddler, preschooler and school-age child how to respond better on IQ tests, ERB tests and the deeply flawed school-designed tests that are used for determining which schools your child is eligible for.  (Of course a poor test result can often be overridden with a big enough cash donation to a school.)

Even outside of Manhattan, my son is always telling me about new commercials with some product or plan that will teach your baby to be the genius that can read before she can walk or some other milestone that will make you feel as if you have produced the little genius that no one else is capable of producing.  I have actually heard parents talk about their children as products.

Children are not products.  They are human BEings.

So, I have a particular dislike of using a term for machines (ie. efficiency) applied to babies. 

While babies are at the breast, they are interacting with their mothers, getting the warmth and contact that stabilizes their heart rate, blood pressure and respiration, they are receiving antibodies and nourishment, and learning how to eat socially.  It is the beginnings of setting up a healthy family eating pattern that involves discussion and interaction, warmth and love.

On average, the typical newborn will eat for 20-50 minutes, 8-12 times per day.  We know from the research that the average mother can usually get the same amount of milk from a good quality pump in 10-15 minutes, 8-10 times a day and my own clinical records reflect this as well.  There is also research to suggests that the pump can extract about 20% more than the baby and again, my clinical records reflect this too.  At the same time, we all know the mothers who stop releasing to pumps if they don't massage when their babies are older, mothers who cannot release to the pump because the concept of pumping impedes their milk ejection reflex, mothers whose milk ducts are placed such that the pump (and sometimes the baby too) doesn't access the ducts well.  

The proper question is not whether the pump is as efficient, but whether it is as physiologic.  And the answer is NO.  Using Linda Smith's designation of tools versus gadgets, pumps can be "tools" in some situations when a baby is not feeding normally from the breast, and "gadgets" when culture takes over and women use them when they are unnecessary.

Best, Susan Burger

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