Baby-Friendly America? Close the Milk Gap

We've heard of the trade gap, wage gap, and gender gap. Now comes the "milk gap."

It is the gap between the time a mother is able to feed her newborn baby breast milk and the twelve months that pediatricians recommend. Why twelve months? Because the health benefits of breastfeeding abound: babies have reduced chances of suffering from diabetes, leukemia, meningitis, obesity and a host of other illnesses. Yet 84 percent of mothers stop breastfeeding before their babies reach age one, in large part, because they have no choice: they need to return to paycheck jobs, many of which are incompatible with breastfeeding.

To become a more family-friendly country, we need to become more baby-friendly and help mothers close the milk gap.

Most babies have a milk deficit: they breastfeed for less than one year. Fortunate moms minimize the deficit by crafting extended paid leaves from work by taking what paid time off they have accrued all at once (for example, maternity leave plus sick days plus vacation days). Other mothers utilize on-site day care, which allows them to break from work to breastfeed. Still others bring their infants to work. Flexible schedules sometimes permit moms to work at home or part-time -- thereby enabling them to nurse their babies while resuming wage work responsibilities. And some moms resort to breast pumps to allow others to feed their babies' the precious mother's milk.

Yet no matter how hard mothers try to close the milk gap, they are left in nearly an impossible situation, trying to meet the twelve-month medical guideline by individually cobbling together a strategy that works perhaps for awhile, staving off guilt about how much milk and breast -- and what they together and separately offer -- their babies and they themselves need.

In some lucky families, babies have a milk surplus. This occurs when mom's number of years spent breastfeeding, divided by the number of kids nursed, exceeds the number one. I have four children. I nursed the eldest for three years, a set of twins for two years, and the last-but-not-least baby for one year. That's eight breastfeeding years divided by four kids, for an average of two years per child: a one-year per child milk surplus. How did I do it? A combination of the strategies: front-loading work as a professor to create an extended paid leave, becoming a stay-at-home mom for awhile, and working from home on a results-only, virtual team.

As an economist, my gut tells me that the milk gap should be closed by somehow offsetting milk deficits with milk surpluses. But that's not practical (though mothers who have donated breast milk to ICU units for premature babies will see the possibility). Instead, what's needed is for people who care about children and families to support public policies and workplace practices that help close the milk gap: paid family leave, flexible work arrangements (including time and space for pumping), convenient, quality child care, and on-ramps back into good jobs and careers for stay-at-home moms.

That sounds like progress toward a baby-friendly country to me.

Comments

[paidfamilyleave]

Dr. Fondas mentioned paid family leave as one of the policies that can help close the milk gap.

California's Paid Family Leave program provides 55% of weekly wages (maximum is $959 weekly) for up to 6 weeks to eligible workers while bonding with a newborn baby, newly adopted or foster child (within the first 12 months of placement) or while caring for a seriously ill family member.

The California Employment Development Department (EDD) administers the program, which is funded by State Disability Insurance (SDI) deductions from workers’ paychecks. Workers who pay into SDI or voluntary disability insurance may be eligible for Paid Family Leave, regardless of their employer’s size, the length of employment, or part-time status. Some workers may have job protection under FMLA or CFRA while they take Paid Family Leave.

For more information visit www.edd.ca.gov or call 1-800-BE-THERE or 1-800-445-1312 (TTY). More information is also available from the non-profit Paid Family Leave Collaborative at www.paidfamilyleave.org or 1-800-880-8047.

[TheLatticeGroup]

I'm 23 and so are most of my friends. Most of us won't be thinking about kids for several more years. After over a year of work-life inquiry through The Lattice Group, I can't help but be exposed to information like this. But I wonder-- share it with my friends now, so they'll be prepared, or don't, so they don't freak out and give up prematurely. Honestly, I don't think any of my friends think about how hard it will be those first years. (Isn't the actual giving birth part painful enough?). But we should (so, on balance, I'll be passing this along). And we should obviously be working to make it more manageable for working women. I want to work and have a family. Don't make me choose between a milk deficit and that fabulous career I want and deserve the opportunity to achieve (let alone a paycheck my family may depend on).

[ThatCrazyLady]

And what will your baby want and deserve?

[BklynFam]

Hi,

I waited a long time to have my first child, who was worth the wait. During my childless years, I learned all I could about an much as I could. It was much of this that informed my decisions as a nursing/working mom and that led to remember certain things I'd heard of a long time ago, and so I did more research. So, I think it is a great idea to show this and other stuff like to your friends, female and male.

As for having to choose...I own a business, work and nurse my son. He was exclusively breastfed for six months. He is now ten months, mostly depends on breast milk, also eats some solid foods. I pump at work & nurse him soon as I pick up at sitter's house, when we're home several times before he sleeps, 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. It's not a hardship to pump, or to nurse because I'm committed to both baby & work. I just do what I have to do. It is about dedication, organization and personal discipline, and about support from your spouse and the working enviornment to allow pumping without shaming, embarrasing, being rude (these are issues that many pump moms I know have to deal with in their work places/with co-workers­... Young people like u can help bring these issues in work places, demand, clean, private pump/nursing stations).

I wish you the best most fabulous careers and families.