Gonneke wrote:
Even working moms do not need a pump and bottles. Many if not most moms can learn to handexpress the needed amount of milk in the same amount of time. And baby's can drink from cups as easy as from bottles once they've learned the techniqie.
  Warmly greeting from southern Netherlands,       Gonneke, 
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The mothers I know who provided their breastmilk to non-latching babies for the *longest* used hand expressing, not pumping.  One of them hand-expressed for several babies for at least 8 months each, each of them unable to attach. That's a lot of months.  (I interviewed her retrospectively for a study on something else.) The other was a mother I supported through a number of months, and who hand-expressed for about 8 months prior to her baby's cleft palate surgery.
One of the objectives of marketing is to create a "need", and when this has coincided with the loss of the skill of hand-expressing as a cultural shift, and a rise in women returning to the workforce, what a bonanza for the pump companies, promoting this "need".  But to what extent does this need really exist?  In two words: marketing and culture, so often intertwined.  Assumptions are created, which are not questioned.
A few years ago, in the 1980s, there was the beginning of interest in advocating for industrial changes along the lines of the ILO 1919 and 1952 Conventions on maternity, to make it possible for women to take lactation breaks during working hours.  Things like workplace creches, lactation breaks and job sharing.  Although job sharing is common, the emphasis on pumps and bottles and facilities for pumping seems to have undermined any interest in pushing for other industrial reform in the interests of mothers and babies. Availility of pumps increasing mothers choices? - In my view, choices are narrowed, and other options closed off.
Virginia
in Brisbane
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