Is this a market now wholly because the United States has shit maternity leave laws, or would it be a market without it as well?
For some cultures, there has been an employment category called "wet nurses" whose entire job was to look after an infant and breastfeed it as a mother would. Perhaps as society becomes more an more unequal, we'll see a resurgence of wet nurses for rich infants.
Got a 3 month old son and my wife is providing the milk. We're lucky in that, for some reason, oatmeal cookies or hot oatmeal cereal causes my wife to have an abundant supply. We're also lucky in that my high-paying tech job allows her to work only part time(2days/week) so she's home most of the time to feed the baby and pumps milk ahead of time when she won't be around. But some women can't produce enough milk or have lives that are too busy, but still want their child to receive the benefits of mother's milk.
Anecdata tells me that women who are stressed out won't produce much milk, so... I assume that's a significant number of people right there.
We outsource almost everything women would, in earlier times, have had to stay home and do (cleaning, childcare, laundry, drycleaning, grocery shopping), so why not milk production as well? I know the process of feeding your infant is very fulfilling, but I've never heard anyone who liked the actual lactating part, which is pretty miserable.
Both of mine have generally been calm. Nursing changes a lot as they get older, mine usually weren't interested in nursing when they've just eaten a lot of solids, or if there are distractions around, and being overtired is a whole other beast.
I'd say now with my second baby, at 11 months, 90% of the bedtime and morning nursings are pleasant bonding experiences, and half of the daytime ones.
Milk production has been outsourced for a very long time [1]. We just now have the technology to move it reliably from supplier to anonymous recipient rather than having to have instantaneous transfer, and social attitudes in the US have swung back in favour of human milk rather than substitutes.
No, if you read the article, you'll see it is absolutely nothing to do with maternity leave.
The article describes a market where companies pay women for breast milk that is left over after they have fed their own babies, and use it to produce a pharmaceutical product for premature babies. The controversy is between non-profits and for profit companies both doing this (but the non-profit doesn't pay the women).
While I agree that maternity leave laws are quite problematic for many women in the US it should also be mentioned that not every mother is able to breast feed their child.
It's actually not that uncommon and in most cases these women are otherwise perfectly healthy and really want to breast feed.
Many non-physiological factors play a role here. For example how much pressure does the mother feel or put on herself. (typically with the first child because it's a new experience) How much stress does she have and so on.
There are also factors where the baby is unable to develop proper latching and sucking technique. My daughter had a tongue-tie, which, while corrected on her second day out, left her with the wrong muscle impulses for nursing.
We had to bottle feed her, and eventually the pumping wasn't enough to continue the supply, or allow the supply to fully "come in".
The fact that women choose to have children at a later age can probably be traced to maternity leave laws (although it seems to be the trend in any developed career-oriented society, not just US).
There are a lot of women who would prefer to breastfeed but can't for a variety of physiological reasons, so this market would at least have the potential to exist even if America's maternity leave laws weren't barbaric.
Can I ask why there is a need to exaggerate creeping into hacker news, particularly where it involves gender topics?
Barbaric literally means: Savage, primitive, brutish.
You don't help a cause with such inappropriate language. I switch off if people can't use non-political language and I'm a dad with young kids so the topic is relevant to my family.
As a European, I have not been able to convince family members or friends
that aren't intimately acquainted with the US-American situation that there
is no universal, legislative framework for paid or unpaid maternity leave.
They usually respond with a variation of
"this can't be right; you must be misinformed;
it would be horrible if that were the case."
And you (as a populace) aren't even fighting for it! Not visibly, at least. So, honestly, you
seem to be the one hurting all sorts of causes with this misdirected
attitude of apologism.
I largely agree now -- in fact I think that women and men (since it's the 21st century and all types of people go on maternity leave) should be able to go on paid maternity leave. The leave will be funded by all corporations for social good -- no point in limiting it to the one the person worked for, since a person on maternity leave contributes equally to all of them. Paid maternity leave is a human right, like clean drinking water and fast internet, and I demand corporations provide us with it!
Most developed countries (the USA being the most notable exception) have some form of paid paternity leave as well, ranging from just a few days, to the same level as maternity leave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave
Where the state provides some or all of the financial assistance for parental leave, one could argue that it is already funded by all corporations, as it would be derived from tax income.
Why should the company provide maternity benefits and not the state? I don't think it's fair for some three person startup to go bankrupt because employee #1 got pregnant and continues to draw down salary while staying home.
We support a common police force because it makes sense that government has a monopoly on force. If private security forces did the job of police, that person or persons employing the private force would be a society unto themselves, not a part of the same society as the rest of us, and when conflict developed between their police and the common police (or the police of a 3rd party -- another private security force), then we would be at war. In other words, you don't understand why everyone in society supports the police.
At the simplest level, because we the people design laws that allow the company to exist. Without our consent, these invented human things called companies would have no legal standing. So, because we say it should be so.
If the person is adding value while not on maternity (or paternity) leave then it would be worthwhile to pay them while they are gone so they come back and continue working for you. If you don't do it, some other employer probably will, and they may choose to work for the employer with better benefits instead.
I see [0] that it mandates 12 weeks of unpaid leave total -- for pregnancy, childbirth, and the first few weeks of caring for the baby -- which is not hugely generous; but it is something.
Note the requirements, which exclude a lot of people including employees of small businesses: "In order to be eligible for FMLA leave, an employee must have been at the business at least 12 months, and worked at least 1,250 hours over the past 12 months, and work at a location where the company employs 50 or more employees within 75 miles."
When my sister developed health complications caused by her pregnancy, she had to quit her job. She had no other choice. But even if she hadn't quit, she would not have been eligible for FMLA. Now she is going through a divorce, and since she has no income, I am helping to pay her living expenses. My family is definitely feeling the ripple effects of our inadequate maternity leave laws in the U.S. right now.
It may be best to explain to your relatives that the federal US government was mostly intended to provide for a common defense and a few other common things, and the states were supposed to be the real movers and shakers. It appears that things may be similar in the EU, where the individual decisions are left up to the member nations:
...In recent times, the states have seemingly ceded a lot of their power to the federal government. Maybe someday there will be an Article V convention and some of that will be reversed.
Aren't you projecting your European biases and beliefs on our American system. Who's to say your system is right, and our system is wrong? Europe takes a different approach to labor and economics than the United States. You may love large socialist structures in Europe, but you trade that off with a slow-growing economy. In the US, we have a smaller socialist structure with fewer safety nets, but we get a faster growing and robust economy. There's no right or wrong.
I'm a US citizen by birth. I just happen to have traveled and lived abroad for a time, and I find the labor laws especially, but the social welfare laws in general in the US to be rather backward and uncivilized: barbaric is a word I chose deliberately because in my opinion it is accurate.
I'm unaware of many "socialist structures" in either Europe or North America, with the exception of Mondragon. That is unless you define socialism as purely meaning "state ownership of industry", which is rather naive, even if widely accepted by the American public.
> even if America's maternity leave laws weren't barbaric.
Please don't throw drive-by explosives into Hacker News comments like that. All it does, predictably, is blow up the thread. Your comment had a fine substantive part, but that, of course, was the part that got ignored.
I've detached this subthread from its parent and marked it off-topic.
Wow, I'm really not sure how to judge your friend ethically...
Providing a source of breast milk is really important. Providing a source of income for people who are poor enough that getting milked for $2 a day sounds good is important. But this is pretty clear exploitation.
I think in poorer countries, living costs and incomes in urban areas are lower than in richer countries but not vastly so.
However, out in the countryside, especially in areas where the farming is mostly subsistence, currency is hard to come by. When everything is okay, that isn't so important because people can get locally produced food and shelter, but when someone needs medical treatment or just imported building materials it is.
However, the people in those areas are not very mobile. There may be a minibus network or similar, but getting to a major urban centre is a big deal, costs a significant amount. You could set up a deal NGO clinics where those exist. I don't know much about Cambodia though personally...
But yeah, I don't know if he's doing a good thing or a terrible thing.
This is interesting. For comparison, in Sweden you donate (sell) milk directly to hospitals where it is handled locally and given to prematurely born children in the hospital.
The prices are set locally by each hospital but is currently at around $20-30 usd / liter, and has been raised a number of times over the last 10 years to encourage more people to donate milk. Hospitals buy milk from each other when necessary for somewhere around $100 per liter.
Donated milk is usually only accepted for the first three months after the donating mothers child was born. All equipment (pumps, bottles etc.) are provided by the hospital.
That said, I would encourage as many people as possible to donate milk, it makes a huge difference for those tiny prematurely born babies.
I've heard stories of ultra-expensive breastmilk that is mixed from many donors - it supposedly gives the newborn antibodies from all those moms (expressed in the breastmilk - that's where babies get their antibodies until their own immune systems kick in). Does anyone have more info?
There's a similar concept for general antibody donation, which is given to the immune compromised, called intravenous immuno-globulin (IVIG)[0], which is extremely effective at modulating the immune system and enhancing immunity. Basically, they take blood donations, purify only (some) antibodies, and mix some 10,000 donors so that the resulting donation is well-rounded in its contents.
48 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] threadFor some cultures, there has been an employment category called "wet nurses" whose entire job was to look after an infant and breastfeed it as a mother would. Perhaps as society becomes more an more unequal, we'll see a resurgence of wet nurses for rich infants.
Anecdata tells me that women who are stressed out won't produce much milk, so... I assume that's a significant number of people right there.
EDIT: Changed phrasing per reply
please- ahem avoid using phrases like that-
EDIT : For god's sake people, it was a JOKE
I'd say now with my second baby, at 11 months, 90% of the bedtime and morning nursings are pleasant bonding experiences, and half of the daytime ones.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_nurse
The article describes a market where companies pay women for breast milk that is left over after they have fed their own babies, and use it to produce a pharmaceutical product for premature babies. The controversy is between non-profits and for profit companies both doing this (but the non-profit doesn't pay the women).
It's actually not that uncommon and in most cases these women are otherwise perfectly healthy and really want to breast feed.
Many non-physiological factors play a role here. For example how much pressure does the mother feel or put on herself. (typically with the first child because it's a new experience) How much stress does she have and so on.
We had to bottle feed her, and eventually the pumping wasn't enough to continue the supply, or allow the supply to fully "come in".
Later age is correlated with lower milk production, kicking up the demand http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/27/us-milk-production...
As a European, I have not been able to convince family members or friends that aren't intimately acquainted with the US-American situation that there is no universal, legislative framework for paid or unpaid maternity leave.
They usually respond with a variation of "this can't be right; you must be misinformed; it would be horrible if that were the case."
And you (as a populace) aren't even fighting for it! Not visibly, at least. So, honestly, you seem to be the one hurting all sorts of causes with this misdirected attitude of apologism.
Social good.
Where the state provides some or all of the financial assistance for parental leave, one could argue that it is already funded by all corporations, as it would be derived from tax income.
(And if every company were obligated to provide it, none would have a short-sighted competitive advantage over those who chose not to provide it.)
Yes there is, it's call the Family Medical Leave Act. It's a federal law that defines the minimum benefit offered.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_of...
When my sister developed health complications caused by her pregnancy, she had to quit her job. She had no other choice. But even if she hadn't quit, she would not have been eligible for FMLA. Now she is going through a divorce, and since she has no income, I am helping to pay her living expenses. My family is definitely feeling the ripple effects of our inadequate maternity leave laws in the U.S. right now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Europe
...(certainly someone can correct me if I'm wrong). If a state wants to mandate maternity leave it can:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_...
...In recent times, the states have seemingly ceded a lot of their power to the federal government. Maybe someday there will be an Article V convention and some of that will be reversed.
> Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.
If your argument ends in this conclusion, you should assume that there's a fallacy somewhere.
That's debatable.
Please don't throw drive-by explosives into Hacker News comments like that. All it does, predictably, is blow up the thread. Your comment had a fine substantive part, but that, of course, was the part that got ignored.
I've detached this subthread from its parent and marked it off-topic.
Providing a source of breast milk is really important. Providing a source of income for people who are poor enough that getting milked for $2 a day sounds good is important. But this is pretty clear exploitation.
I think in poorer countries, living costs and incomes in urban areas are lower than in richer countries but not vastly so.
However, out in the countryside, especially in areas where the farming is mostly subsistence, currency is hard to come by. When everything is okay, that isn't so important because people can get locally produced food and shelter, but when someone needs medical treatment or just imported building materials it is.
However, the people in those areas are not very mobile. There may be a minibus network or similar, but getting to a major urban centre is a big deal, costs a significant amount. You could set up a deal NGO clinics where those exist. I don't know much about Cambodia though personally...
But yeah, I don't know if he's doing a good thing or a terrible thing.
The prices are set locally by each hospital but is currently at around $20-30 usd / liter, and has been raised a number of times over the last 10 years to encourage more people to donate milk. Hospitals buy milk from each other when necessary for somewhere around $100 per liter.
Donated milk is usually only accepted for the first three months after the donating mothers child was born. All equipment (pumps, bottles etc.) are provided by the hospital.
That said, I would encourage as many people as possible to donate milk, it makes a huge difference for those tiny prematurely born babies.
There's a similar concept for general antibody donation, which is given to the immune compromised, called intravenous immuno-globulin (IVIG)[0], which is extremely effective at modulating the immune system and enhancing immunity. Basically, they take blood donations, purify only (some) antibodies, and mix some 10,000 donors so that the resulting donation is well-rounded in its contents.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intravenous_immunoglobulin