We have the second most expensive childcare system in the world, after the Slovak Republic, which makes it prohibitively expensive for many parents to return to work.3 Our own research of 20,000 mothers in 2021 found that a third pay more for their childcare than their mortgage, rising to almost half for respondents from a Black ethnic background.

Right now, we lack the societal, institutional, and cultural support structure to help mothers meet their breast-feeding goals. If we’re telling women that they should breast-feed exclusively for six months, then we should give them—at minimum—the same amount of paid family leave.