>let us not expect our new
>moms to suddenly learn to hand express

It's not rocket science folks.  It takes less time to learn to hand express,
even doing it trial and error with no one to tell you or show you how than
it does to read the instructions for any pump.

Every mom leaves the hospital with an excellent pump, in fact, two -- one on
the end of each hand.  As long as we keep expecting that breastfeeding
mothers need technology in order to breastfeed successfully, then we will
never have a breastfeeding-friendly society.  Technology is NOT necessary.
Women have breastfed successfully without pumps for millions of years, and
the vast majority of women in the world today still breastfeed successfully
without pumps.  Most women in the world and through history and prehistory
have breastfed successfully without ever hand-expressing either, for that
matter.

The increased acceptance and *promotion* of pumps, whether for monetary gain
or out of a misplaced idea that US women NEED pumps in order to breastfeed
successfully is just another example of how we in the US tend to medicalize
and technologize everything in our lives, and assume that technology is
better than nature.  As long as any of us, for whatever noble reason,
promotes the handing out of pumps, we perpetuate the idea that breastfeeding
is difficult, time-consuming, and a hassle, and we promote the further
separation of the act of breastfeeding from the product of breast milk.

Work towards less birth interventions, work towards no separation of mother
and baby, work towards education about breastfeeding in the public school
system (why in the world should mom have to learn about breastfeeding only
in a class she takes when she is pregnant), work towards empowering women to
breastfeed in public and in front of their friends and kids, so that
everyone knows what it looks like.  Don't hide behind "we *need* our
technology" -- it is counterproductive in the long run.

Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition
Texas A&M University