It is easy to say “all babies should be breastfed” but then ignore the social context that mothers have to work within as they try to breastfeed their babies. This post from the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine does a great job addressing this issue. Here is a taste:

These issues transcend breastfeeding. Why, for example, do we pit “stay at home moms” against “working moms,” rather than demand  high-quality, affordable child care, flexible work, and paid maternity leave so that each woman can pursue both market work and caring work, in the proportion she finds most fulfilling? Why do we accept that, if a woman devotes all of her time to caring for her family, she does not earn any social security benefits, whereas if she gets a paying job and sends her children to day care, she and her day care provider earn credits toward financial security in old age? And why do we enact social policies that subsidize child care and require poor mothers to enter the paid work force, rather than support poor mothers to care for their own children?