The Skinny on Breast-Feeding
Major eye-rolling ensued when I read the article in The New York Times this week about breast-feeding and weight loss. Now that women have surpassed men on the national payroll shouldn’t we be talking about the obstacles women face pumping at work? (FYI, you can check out Moms to Work and The Savvy Gal for those stories.)
To be fair, the Times has written several articles this year on breast-feeding. They’ve covered the health benefits for mothers and babies, a link between breast-feeding and lower breast cancer rates, and the challenges of working, travelling and pumping. But I am more interested in changing work/life policies that favor working parents than I am in changing my waistline.
The eye-rolling started at this sentence:
These days, more than ever, a mother is expected to bounce back from pregnancy and be a “yummy mummy” in no time.
And really got going here:
Earlier this year, Rebecca Romijn, who wore a shrink-wrapped outfit in “X-Men,” called breast-feeding her new twins “the very best diet I’ve been on.” After Angelina Jolie posed for the November 2008 cover of W magazine nursing one of her twins, she said that it had helped her regain her figure.
Come on, NYT. We expect People Magazine and US Weekly to feed us that load of BS. But the Gray Lady? Surely, you suspect nutritionists, trainers and eating disorders play a role in postpartum celebrity body bounce backs, don’t you?
Maybe I’m bitter because even though I nursed, I’m still trying to shed the weight I gained while pregnant with my daughter. (She’s five.) And certainly, I’m not above wanting to look good postpartum. At my 12 week checkup following the C-section delivery of my firstborn, my doctor asked me how I was healing.
“I’m bleeding,” I said.
She looked concerned. “That doesn’t sound right. Your scar was healing nicely.”
“It’s not my scar,” I confessed. “It’s my stomach. I tried to wear my pre-pregnancy jeans and my fat got caught in the zipper.”
But it was this quote that really got my eyes-rolling:
Ms. Walker thinks breast-feeding mothers shouldn’t feel guilty for loving the calorie burn. “We deserve it,” she said. “She ought to get into those skinny jeans after 9 months of pregnancy and 20 hours of labor. That’s what I tell mothers. Go for it.”
Hey Ms. Walker: You know what I deserve after 9 months of pregnancy and 36 hours of labor? A pass on how I look and a big fat fudge brownie!
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Liz, right on, Babe!!!! This was great