Lynne Featherstone responds...

I received a quick reponse from Lynne Featherstone that was pretty impressive. She said she appreciated my concerns and attached a letter she'd written to Nick Clegg.

In it, she mentioned mothers giving up exclusive breastfeeding due to insufficient pumping breaks and reflected on the possibility to statutory pumping breaks being introduced as part of the flexible parental leave proposal.

It'll be very interesting to see Nick Clegg's response. Where does he go to answer those questions and will he appreciate that this issue can't simply be about employer discretion if new mothers really are going to get back into the workplace as early as he would like them to?

The infant feeding survey fully published on the 20th November revealed only 19% of mothers had resources in the workplace to express and maintain their milk supply.

Flexible parental leave is unlikely to work for anyone if families are being asked to choose either a return to work or a continuation of breastfeeding. No family should have to make that choice in a world of modern breast pumps, fridges and knowledge about the benefits of breastfeeding.