When it comes to encouraging breast-feeding, advocates usually focus on moms and clinicians — moms for obvious reasons, doctors and nurses because they can provide medical support as women get comfortable with a bodily function that may be natural but doesn’t always come naturally. August is National Breastfeeding Month, and the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee is choosing to shift the focus, training the spotlight on society in general and the role everyone can play in helping mothers meet their breast-feeding goals. Playing off the Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding issued last year, the committee’s new campaign is called “Everyone Can Help Make Breastfeeding Easier”: 20 Actions in 20 Days. Don’t expect any breast-versus-bottle battles here nor any stabs at inducing guilt in new moms. According to the committee’s executive summary: The decision to breast-feed is a personal one, and a mother should not be made to feel guilty if she cannot or chooses not to breast-feed. The success rate among mothers who want to breast-feed can be greatly improved through active support from their families, friends, communities, clinicians, health care leaders, employers and policymakers. Given the importance of breast-feeding for the health and well-being of mothers and children, it is critical that we take action across the country to support breast-feeding. The approach is a delicate exercise in nuance. Although most women are feeding their babies formula by six months, the message about the importance of breast-feeding has penetrated the culture — and it’s rubbing some moms the wrong way. At Mommyish, Lindsay Cross wrote about how she “felt so guilty at the thought of not breast-feeding” that she says she would have even experimented with prescription drugs to try to increase her milk supply: Now, we’re seeing a backlash against the extreme pressure that mothers are under. Women are ignoring all that “breast is best,” advice. I think that’s partly because it doesn’t seem like advice anymore, it feels like a commandment. …I know that I would’ve eagerly signed up for any drug that would’ve made breast-feeding easier. I would’ve ignored the![]()
