While experts agree that breastfeeding is healthy and beneficial to both moms and newborns, mothers know that getting a baby to latch on can be difficult - and continuing to breastfeed for weeks or months can be exhausting and even painful. If nursing is becoming too hard for you because of stress, work or physical issues, but you want your baby to keep getting the benefits of breast milk, pumping can be the answer. But should you pump by hand or by machine?

According to researchers at The University of California, San Francisco, mothers who pump by hand were more likely to continue breastfeeding than those who used machines.

"There were no differences in the amount of milk expressed, but two months later 97.1 percent of mothers who had expressed by hand were still breast-feeding, compared with 72.7 percent of those who used the machines," explains The New York Times.

But why? The researchers theorize that feeling embarrassed might hamper efforts to breastfeed, and the women who pumped by hand were more likely to feel comfortable expressing milk even when company was present. Of course, the kind of woman who is comfortable massaging her own lactating breasts in front of guests is also more likely to be the type of woman who'd feel deeply attached to the process of breastfeeding, which may be why these ladies were more apt to continue nursing their infants longer.

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