"Exercise. Cut down on television. Eat more fruits and vegetables. Oh, and make sure your children are breast-fed.

That is the latest prescription for preventing childhood obesity, as written by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on studies that have found that children who were breast-fed extensively as babies were less likely to put on weight later in life.

...Studies have found that breast-fed children are 20 to 45 percent less likely to be obese than children who were never breast-fed, said to Kathryn G. Dewey, a professor of nutrition at the University of California, Davis. The longer a child is breast-fed, the better, according to one analysis published last year, which concluded that a child's risk of being overweight dropped by 4 percent for each month of breast-feeding."

"The government is right to let out the word that, all things being equal, mothers should breast-feed their babies. The American Academy of Pediatrics cites "strong evidence" that breast milk reduces the incidence and severity of a wide range of infectious diseases, including diarrhea, respiratory infections and ear infections.

...The American Academy of Pediatrics concluded last year that 'some studies' suggest adults and older children who were breast-fed are less apt to contract diabetes, lymphoma, leukemia, obesity, high cholesterol and asthma."

The advantages of breastfeeding are now so well established that serious scholars no longer dispute them.  What some American feminists do dispute, however, is the relationship between maternal employment and breastfeeding.  Some American feminists assert that the low level of breastfeeding among employed American mothers is anomalous, a sorry reflection on the singular backwardness of the policies that American lawmakers and corporate executives have put in place.  Two new studies - one from Greece and one from the Netherlands - indicate, however, that maternal employment creates a serious impediment for maternal breastfeeding in lands far from the United States.

The authors of the Greek study - published in Acta Pediatrica - begin by emphasizing that "breast milk is nutritionally and immunologically superior to any known substitute" and by citing the World Health Organization's recommendation of "exclusive breastfeeding for 6 mo[nths] as a global policy in order to achieve optimal maternal and infant health."  But when the Greek scholars look at data for 1,603 healthy women who delivered normal-weight babies in Athens in 2001, they find indications that maternal employment is preventing even initiation of breastfeeding.  More specifically, they find that over half (56%) of the 62 women in the study who did not breastfeed at all in the hospital after giving birth were employed, while less than half of the 306 women who breastfed exclusively in the hospital (43%) were employed.  Of the 1,117 women in the Greek study who departed from the WHO's recommendation of exclusive breastfeeding by giving their newborn babies a combination of breast milk and formula while in the hospital, almost two thirds (61%) were employed.  Commenting on their findings, the Greek scholars remark, "Employment is generally considered as a factor that has a negative impact on breastfeeding initiation." 

But it is the maintenance more than the initiation of breastfeeding that appears to be negatively affected by maternal employment in a Dutch study published in the same issue of Acta Pediatrica as the Greek study.  Analyzing national data for 9,133 Dutch infants under the age of seven months, the Dutch researchers find that although a very high percentage of employed Dutch mothers begin breastfeeding, relatively few continue it for even four months, two months short of the duration recommended by the WHO.  The data for four-month-old infants indicate that "mothers who did not leave the house to work, or who had a less than part-time job (i.e. < 16h/wk) were more likely to mainly breastfeed their infant at 4 mo[nths] compared to women who worked outside the house for more than 16 h/wk" (Odds Ratio of 1.57).  Almost half (44%) of mothers with no job or less than a part-time job were still mainly breastfeeding their infant at four months compared to less than a third (29%) of mothers employed full-time.  "Maternal job status," observe the Dutch scholars, "is an important predictor for longer duration of breastfeeding."

In country after country, it appears clear that maternal employment means infants are denied the benefits of breastfeeding.