Breastfeeding and the Lack of Paid Maternity Leave in the US

In the wake of last week’s uproar over formula companies lobbying the government to change health policies, I came across an interesting article discussing the flipside of the breastfeeding issue. The author, Anne Hart, argues that women are intelligent beings who aren’t to be fooled by formula advertising and rather, the low breastfeeding rates have more to do with the United States’ lack of paid maternity leave.

Personally, I think she underestimates both the power of marketing dollars and the political power of lobbyists. See Peggy O’Mara (Mothering Magazine)’s most recent column A Quiet Place: Is Breastfeeding in Trouble? Though to be fair, Hart is concentrating specifically on the practice of giving formula samples out at US hospitals (a practice that has been banned by the WHO and UNICEF).

Despite this, Hart is totally on the mark about maternity leave. In the United States, women are only entitled to 12 weeks off work, and that’s unpaid leave. The National Geographic (August 2007) published a survey of 168 countries to see what maternity benefits were like around the world. The results showed shockingly that things need to change in the States. The United States are among only 5 nations that do not offer any paid leave at all (brown on the map below).


Considering that it can take more than 6 weeks just to get breastfeeding successfully established at all, how is a new mother supposed to also navigate the return to work AND continue breastfeeding, especially without adequate support? Is this why women are turning to wet-nurses?

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