Here’s a wonderful news story of a group of women who have stepped up to ensure a young baby benefits from breast milk after tragedy struck a family in Marquette, Michigan.  Shortly after her baby son was born, Susan Goodrich died of an amniotic fluid embolism but numerous women in the community have rallied to nurse the baby boy.

From the One Million Campaign website: “The ONE MILLION CAMPAIGN Support Women to Breastfeed is a campaign of the World Breastfeeding Movement with just one mission - to mobilize public opinion through one million signatures, demanding support to women to breastfeed. 

Most people think of breastfeeding as something that happens between the woman and her child: that this decision is in the personal domain. However, several factors affect women’s ability to breastfeed successfully: traditions, myths, status in the family and society, work load, confidence in her body and sexuality, economic needs, labour laws, domestic and workplace violence and harassment, availability of support services, advertising by commercial baby food manufacturers, and so on.”

Most women who are exclusively pumping are painfully aware of the lack of support and knowledge available to new moms who are wanting to breastfeed.  While some women make the choice to pump even before their baby is born, most moms who are EPing do so only after a difficult start to the breastfeeding relationship and often an inability to find the support necessary. 

Consider signing the petition on the One Million Campaign website and send a message to policy makers that breastfeeding matters!

In our North American society, it is hard enough feeling comfortable to nurse a baby in public and more many women who are exclusively pumping, the thought of expressing in public is likely not even conceivable.  Came across this news story in a European magazine discussing women who are expressing breast milk and I thought the pictures and the way they approached it was rather refreshing.  Using a breast pump to express milk on either a part-time or full-time basis is a reality for many women today, and yet it is something often done alone and without the knowledge and support of others.  Perhaps there is something to be considered and learned from this magazine article?