On top of feeding my child, I donated 40 gallons through an informal milksharing group. It was long, hard work, but it struck me that the families who needed the milk worked even harder, finding and screening donors, driving all over creation, and trying never to waste a drop. Just another example of the unpaid labor of breastfeeding that is little-known and incompatible with many jobs.
Kristin, this is a brilliant post. You’ve put figures and sound reasoning to many topics I feel should be better, and more loudly shared.
I worry society’s fear of “shaming” the women who couldn’t breastfeed — is distracting us from the real benefits breastfeeding brings.
We should absolutely pay women for the service they give society in breastfeeding. We should also do more to build support systems — beyond critiquing a baby/mothers latch approach — that make it not so lonely/isolating for women to undertake this critical work.
Thanks for sharing — I’ll be quoting stats from here for months to come!
I love this article and agree that it could work if good health and wellbeing were really what the powers-that-be wanted for us. Unfortunately, Governmental agencies seem hell-bent on wrecking the mother-child bond and the family in general. A less stable family unit is more conducive to the communist dystopia we are headed towards.
This would be a game changer. I’m very leery of priceless things that are too priceless to pay anything for. I feel like a lot of things about motherhood get lumped into this category.
Just piping up from the UK: we don’t get a year’s paid maternity leave, and the breastfeeding figure you quote isn’t quite correct.
Employees get up to a year’s leave, of which 39 weeks are paid - 6 weeks at 90% salary, remainder at £187.18 or less a week. Employers MAY choose to top up this amount of pay. Maternity pay is also taxed.
The 1% at 6 months stat refers to “exclusive” breastfeeding, defined as no substance but breastmilk having passed the infant’s lips by 6 months. A single mouthful of formula or bite of solid food would disqualify an infant from the EBF stat.
Will get back to reading the piece now! 😂
ETA: just corrected the figure for statutory maternity pay.
I wrote something similar just over a year ago, and used the Mother's Milk tool (linked in article, I can't find another way to share it here) to calculate my economic contribution to society through breastfeeding. At the time it was over $60000, and I've breastfed for another year since then. I've definitely contributed more to the economic growth of society through my breastmilk than through any other form of employment I've ever done!
Getting recognised for it would be a huge blessing, being a single income family in a world designed for double income families is a challenge.
Anyway, here's the article if anyone wants to link through to the Mother's Milk tool
Logically I get this argument and I’ve seen it made before but honestly my gut hates this ! There are some things I have done for love not money and personally being paid for breastfeeding would somehow have tarnished it for me . I don’t think any unpaid care work becomes valuable just by paying for it . We need a whole paradigm shift on what is valued why and how . To me this idea is just joining “ them “. My love, my breast milk have never been quantifiable they are so much more than this and I wouldn’t want them cheapened ! That said … thanks for a thought provoking article ❤️
Why pay for breastfeeding versus just providing stipends for families with children under two to spend as they wish (formula, childcare, to support a parent at home, whatever they need)? In addition, are you planning on paying women who are breastfeeding enough to make up for the opportunity cost of not being able to work many full-time jobs while breastfeeding? (I understand it is theoretically feasible to pump while working full-time, I did it, but also recognize that for many women it is in practice impossible or too difficult to sustain.)
I can’t imagine how you would quantify this. What qualifies as fully breastfed? Never having a bottle? What if the bottle contains breast milk? There are so many different variables and I am unsure about asking mom to weigh their personal wellbeing and the specific needs of their infants, against whatever is required to get a check. I guess I’d rather see breastfeeding moms get the amount WIC would spend on formula, if they aren’t using the formula.
My daughter was breastfed until 15 months, exclusively so for exactly six months. My pediatrician wanted me only nurse her until her first birthday, but she was grabbing food out of my hands, so I started adding other foods.
Since I was employed by the WIC Program from 1994-1998, I feel I must comment. I was hired as a WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Coordinator. In Florida they had and have a breastfeeding program embedded in WIC. In Florida at that time any formula (usually specialty formulas) that WIC had was not in sight but locked up. Mothers on WIC receive their infant formula in grocery stores not at WIC offices. In Florida mothers who received Medicaid were required to go back to employment at 2 months postpartum. Not all WIC mothers were on Medicaid, and some were stay at home mothers. While WIC is a Federal Program under the USDA, each state will set the Program up differently. At this point in time there appears to be a waiting list in my county to get on WIC. Funding from the federal government is a key factor in how many families are allowed into the Program. In that time period I was there we increased breastfeeding initiation rates from some 38% to 58%. I do not support paying women to breastfeed. This belief that value is only in what we monetize is capitalism at its essence. Who will monitor mothers to make sure that they are breastfeeding? The infant formula industry and a lot of our society only values mother's milk. They own the patents on human milk components genetically engineered. In a capitalist system industry is only valued if it is profitable. The milk of mothers is valued monetarily now (Nestle has its own human milk bank), and who benefits? Mothers?
On top of feeding my child, I donated 40 gallons through an informal milksharing group. It was long, hard work, but it struck me that the families who needed the milk worked even harder, finding and screening donors, driving all over creation, and trying never to waste a drop. Just another example of the unpaid labor of breastfeeding that is little-known and incompatible with many jobs.
Kristin, this is a brilliant post. You’ve put figures and sound reasoning to many topics I feel should be better, and more loudly shared.
I worry society’s fear of “shaming” the women who couldn’t breastfeed — is distracting us from the real benefits breastfeeding brings.
We should absolutely pay women for the service they give society in breastfeeding. We should also do more to build support systems — beyond critiquing a baby/mothers latch approach — that make it not so lonely/isolating for women to undertake this critical work.
Thanks for sharing — I’ll be quoting stats from here for months to come!
I love this article and agree that it could work if good health and wellbeing were really what the powers-that-be wanted for us. Unfortunately, Governmental agencies seem hell-bent on wrecking the mother-child bond and the family in general. A less stable family unit is more conducive to the communist dystopia we are headed towards.
This would be a game changer. I’m very leery of priceless things that are too priceless to pay anything for. I feel like a lot of things about motherhood get lumped into this category.
Yes, precisely. Whether we like it or not we live under capitalism where anything of value has a monetary value.
Just piping up from the UK: we don’t get a year’s paid maternity leave, and the breastfeeding figure you quote isn’t quite correct.
Employees get up to a year’s leave, of which 39 weeks are paid - 6 weeks at 90% salary, remainder at £187.18 or less a week. Employers MAY choose to top up this amount of pay. Maternity pay is also taxed.
The 1% at 6 months stat refers to “exclusive” breastfeeding, defined as no substance but breastmilk having passed the infant’s lips by 6 months. A single mouthful of formula or bite of solid food would disqualify an infant from the EBF stat.
Will get back to reading the piece now! 😂
ETA: just corrected the figure for statutory maternity pay.
I wrote something similar just over a year ago, and used the Mother's Milk tool (linked in article, I can't find another way to share it here) to calculate my economic contribution to society through breastfeeding. At the time it was over $60000, and I've breastfed for another year since then. I've definitely contributed more to the economic growth of society through my breastmilk than through any other form of employment I've ever done!
Getting recognised for it would be a huge blessing, being a single income family in a world designed for double income families is a challenge.
Anyway, here's the article if anyone wants to link through to the Mother's Milk tool
https://open.substack.com/pub/beckdelahoy/p/why-we-need-to-put-a-price-on-breastmilk?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=21hm6o
So many great points in here!
Thank you!
Logically I get this argument and I’ve seen it made before but honestly my gut hates this ! There are some things I have done for love not money and personally being paid for breastfeeding would somehow have tarnished it for me . I don’t think any unpaid care work becomes valuable just by paying for it . We need a whole paradigm shift on what is valued why and how . To me this idea is just joining “ them “. My love, my breast milk have never been quantifiable they are so much more than this and I wouldn’t want them cheapened ! That said … thanks for a thought provoking article ❤️
Why pay for breastfeeding versus just providing stipends for families with children under two to spend as they wish (formula, childcare, to support a parent at home, whatever they need)? In addition, are you planning on paying women who are breastfeeding enough to make up for the opportunity cost of not being able to work many full-time jobs while breastfeeding? (I understand it is theoretically feasible to pump while working full-time, I did it, but also recognize that for many women it is in practice impossible or too difficult to sustain.)
I can’t imagine how you would quantify this. What qualifies as fully breastfed? Never having a bottle? What if the bottle contains breast milk? There are so many different variables and I am unsure about asking mom to weigh their personal wellbeing and the specific needs of their infants, against whatever is required to get a check. I guess I’d rather see breastfeeding moms get the amount WIC would spend on formula, if they aren’t using the formula.
My daughter was breastfed until 15 months, exclusively so for exactly six months. My pediatrician wanted me only nurse her until her first birthday, but she was grabbing food out of my hands, so I started adding other foods.
Since I was employed by the WIC Program from 1994-1998, I feel I must comment. I was hired as a WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Coordinator. In Florida they had and have a breastfeeding program embedded in WIC. In Florida at that time any formula (usually specialty formulas) that WIC had was not in sight but locked up. Mothers on WIC receive their infant formula in grocery stores not at WIC offices. In Florida mothers who received Medicaid were required to go back to employment at 2 months postpartum. Not all WIC mothers were on Medicaid, and some were stay at home mothers. While WIC is a Federal Program under the USDA, each state will set the Program up differently. At this point in time there appears to be a waiting list in my county to get on WIC. Funding from the federal government is a key factor in how many families are allowed into the Program. In that time period I was there we increased breastfeeding initiation rates from some 38% to 58%. I do not support paying women to breastfeed. This belief that value is only in what we monetize is capitalism at its essence. Who will monitor mothers to make sure that they are breastfeeding? The infant formula industry and a lot of our society only values mother's milk. They own the patents on human milk components genetically engineered. In a capitalist system industry is only valued if it is profitable. The milk of mothers is valued monetarily now (Nestle has its own human milk bank), and who benefits? Mothers?