>
>
>It's a little bit amusing to think that 
>somewhere some ingénue lactation consultant 
>(with all due respect and props to the original 
>poster) is losing sleep, worried that we might 
>put Medela out of business. Girlfriend, Medela 
>is way bigger than we are and they are 
>reinventing breastfeeding. On our watch. And 
>here's the thing: people like them more than 
>they like us.  Medela speaks the language of the 
>generation. They understand and value things 
>like commodification. And branding. And buying 
>things. I'm repeating myself now. I'm afraid our 
>message of love and health and empowerment is 
>getting lost. We still live in a bottle feeding 
>culture only now it's a Medela bottle and we are 
>putting breastmilk it. Ask any mother: she 
>breastfeeds for the "nutrients" or for the 
>"health benefits". It's all about the milk. For 
>Medela, it's all about the money.
>Kristen Panzer, MS IBCLC

Well said, Kristen.....my heart sinks at the 
creeping idea that somehow it's good to pump, and 
actually, rather better and more 'convenient' 
than breastfeeding direct, and that you cannot 
breastfeed without pumping.  Who does this 
benefit? Not mothers, not babies, that's for sure.

We haven't got there yet, and in the UK at least, 
we are some distance away from embracing the idea 
(hope my UK colleagues agree), but we are having 
to fight it.

We have increasingingly good paid maternity 
leave, which helps a lot, and  we still use the 
word 'express' far more than we do 'pumping' 
which is good....takes the emphasis away from the 
commodity and also includes the possibility of 
hand expressing.  Mothers and fathers have to be 
coaxed away from the notion that expressing 'so 
dad can bond'  but if they don't get coaxed, then 
it's normally only one bottle every so often, and 
frequently, they discover for themselves it's not 
necessary.

Expressing is a useful skill to learn as an 
adjunct to normal, direct breastfeeding, and I am 
all in favour of it being on the menu of things 
mothers can choose to do every so often.

But the focus on pumping makes it all about the 
milk, creates huge pressures on women (because it 
has to be *the* hardest way of breastfeeding, 
doesn't it?),  removes one of the lovliest 
pleasures of babycare, and once again, makes 
women think that something they buy does a better 
job than they can.  Pah!

I wouldn't care one bit if all the pump 
manufacturers went out of business tomorrow, to 
be honest.  We'd have enough functioning 
second-hand machines to keep us all going well 
enough for years, while we re-focussed on 
hand-expressing,  cross-nursing, human milk 
banking , for the medical/social circumstances 
where direct breastfeeding really isn't possible, 
or to act as an occasional useful back-up for 
routine, normal, everyday feeding.

It seems to me  naive to think of pump 
manufacturers as the friend of breastfeeding 
supporters.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK

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