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For subscribers	July 8, 2022

NEWSLETTER PREVIEW

This is a preview of the Jessica Grose On Parenting newsletter, which is normally reserved for Times subscribers.

Journalist and novelist Jessica Grose explores what it means to be a parent today, analyzing the health, economics and culture of the American family.

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Eleanor Davis

There's nothing about maternal mental health in the American Academy of Pediatrics's updated policy statement

By Jessica Grose

Last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics released an updated policy statement on breastfeeding that suggested increasing the duration of breastfeeding to two years or more from one year or more. As my Times colleague Catherine Pearson explained, this is the first update to the breastfeeding recommendations in a decade.

Besides the increase in duration, many of the recommendations remained similar to the guidance published in 2012: The academy continues to recommend breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months of a baby's life, for example. Dr. Joan Meek, the lead author of the policy statement, told Pearson that the update has been in the works for years, and timing of its publication "should not be interpreted as if the A.A.P. were suggesting in any way that women can breastfeed their way out of the current formula crisis."

A generous reading of these new guidelines is that they're meant to reduce the stigma against breastfeeding past 12 months, which is a noble idea: Mothers should be supported by medical providers, workplaces, their families and society at large in breastfeeding for as long as they want to. And the new policy statement notes that there aren't enough structural supports in place — such as paid parental leave, flexible work schedules and on-site child care — that might help American families reach their breastfeeding goals.

But releasing the new guidance mere days after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, when millions of American women are alarmed about restrictions on their reproductive and physical autonomy, was a move that struck many as clueless and even callous. And not only are we also still experiencing a formula shortage, but the PUMP Act, legislation meant to give more women access to workplace protections for lactation, failed to pass in the Senate right before Roe toppled.

"Currently, nine million women of childbearing age are left out of federal workplace lactation protections," Liz Morris, deputy director at the Center for WorkLife Law, told me in an email. "Teachers, registered nurses, agricultural workers and many others have no federal right to take work breaks to pump milk to feed their nursing babies. The new A.A.P. guidelines explicitly recommend 'universal' workplace break time and private space," something that the pediatrics academy should know is out of reach for the foreseeable future.

As a result, a lot of parents have felt a version of the sentiment, Get it together, A.A.P.

Timing isn't the only problem …

END OF PREVIEW

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