Dr. Whitney uses her experience as a pediatrician to explain how the formula shortage points to a lack of support for women in the workplace, why women might not choose to breastfeed, and changes we need to see made in order to support women in the workplace.

Key takeaways:

Statistics on breastfeeding and formula usage:

• Per the CDC, 84% of American babies are breastfeed at birth, with that number going down to 50% at 3 months, and 25% at 6 months
• Globally, the average is 40% of babies under 6 months are exclusively breastfed vs. 35% in the U.S.
• At 3 months, 73% of white children receive breast milk while 58% of black children do. At 6 months, it’s 62% of white children and less than 45% of black children. Black people and other minorities are more likely to work in low wage jobs which will be way less likely to have the luxury of paid leave, which makes them even more vulnerable to formula shortages.
• The formula shortage is affecting about ⅔ of the babies that are relying on formula for at least part of their nutritional needs in their first year of life

There are a number of reasons why American women would choose not to breastfeed:

• Not having paid leave. It’s extremely hard to breastfeed when you have to pump at work. It’s time consuming, it’s cumbersome, and requires a flexible schedule and privacy. And for low wage workers, those luxuries are elusive. Even as a higher paid worker, I still had to deal with stigma from colleagues about taking breaks to pump in order to consistently breastfeed. I actually had to remind my superiors about the federal laws that were in place to protect me surrounding breastfeeding at my workplace. And lower waged workers are usually not even able to have that conversation.

• If there was a lot of trauma/pain/difficulty surrounding breastfeeding, it weighs on their mental health to continue. And we don’t need to provide any guilt around that.

• Our country’s lack of support for women early on. Most women don’t have the ability to heal properly without being stressed about going back to work right away or to take the time to put in the work that it takes to get breastfeeding down successfully.

• The formula shortage brings to light all the inequities that exist way higher up in the “supply chain.” It highlights all the inequities that exist for moms in structural and social support for breastfeeding, paid leave, and even being able to leave the workplace to have a baby and not have a wage pay gap when you return (which only plays more into being able to afford formula in the first place). 

• We know exactly what we need to do in order to support moms in the workplace. We need to honor and respect them and see their needs as real instead of seeing them as an inconvenience in the corporate setting. And businesses need to start seeing that when those things aren’t in place, that affects whether or not women want to stay in those positions, but also their ability to excel in their careers and to be in a place of influence and power and to have a seat at the table. When that happens, then business owners can start making decisions from a place of better representation.

Hey mama!

We'd love to hear from you, Mama! Do you listen each week? Leave a review or share a screenshot of your favorite episode(s) on social. Be sure to tag @modernmommydoc so we can see how much you're loving the podcast!