Rep. Michele Bachmann must believe that breast-feeding is good for babies, for she acknowledges that she breast-fed her own five children.

But, apparently, she doesn’t want to make it easier for other women to breast-feed their children — particularly working women who don’t have the luxury of extended maternity leave.

On Laura Ingraham’s radio show Tuesday, Bachmann lashed out at First Lady Michelle Obama’s support of last week’s ruling by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that made the purchases of breast pumps and other nursing supplies tax deductible for some women.

The first lady is promoting breast-feeding as part of her “Let’s Move” campaign to reduce childhood obesity. Research has shown an association between breast-feeding and a lower risk of obesity in childhood and later in life.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also encourages breast-feeding as a way of reducing obesity — and of cutting our nation’s upward-spiraling health-care costs.

But Bachmann apparently sees the breast pump issue differently — as an example of unnecessary government intrusion into our private lives. “I’ve given birth to five babies and I breast-fed every single one of these babies,” Bachmann said on the radio show. “To think that government has to go out and buy my breast pump for my babies. I mean, you want to talk about the nanny state?"

I’m not quite sure what she means by that. The government isn’t buying nursing women breast pumps (nor telling them they must buy them). The IRS is simply permitting women to purchase a pump and other breast-feeding supplies with their flexible spending accounts — as they can now buy other health-related items, such as hearing aids, contact-lens solution and over-the-counter pain relievers. Women who don’t have flexible spending accounts can deduct the cost of the pumps and nursing supplies (if they itemize and if their medical expenses are more than 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income.)

“I think it’s a wonderful thing,” said Betsy Clarke, director of Minnesota's Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, in a phone interview Wednesday. “There are lots of women who are making an effort to breast-feed and who need to have access to a pump in order to do that because they are working or going to school.”

But breast pumps can be expensive — and, thus, a barrier to breast-feeding. Double electric pumps — the kind necessary for working women because they express milk from both breasts and do so relatively quickly — can cost $200 to $400.

For many women, being able to use their flexible savings account to pay for a pump may make the difference in whether or not they continue to feed their babies breast milk when they return to work.

As I’ve reported here before, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), breast-fed babies are less likely to develop infections, diarrhea and bacterial meningitis, and may also be at reduced risk of developing asthma, diabetes, obesity, childhood leukemia and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).  They may also have healthier lives later in life.

Breast-feeding also has benefits for women, including a decreased risk of developing breast cancer, ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

That's why the AAP — as well as the World Health Organization and other health-related organizations — recommend that babies receive breastmilk for at least a year and exclusively for the first six months. Without a pump, working women are unable to follow that recommendation.

That's also why the AAP praised the IRS for its ruling last week.

A study published last year in the journal Pediatrics estimated that if 90 percent of American moms breast-fed their babies exclusively for six months, the U.S. economy would save $13 billion annually in health-care costs. And, more important, the lives of more than 900 infants would be saved each year.

Is a government program that helps women breast-feed representative of a nanny state? Hardly. Is it representative of a society that values the health of its children and families? Most definitely.