to be absolutely freaking fuming about breastfeeding vouchers! !!!

[harriet247]

Cannot put into words how annoyed I am,have just switched on the news to be told that the government are considering offering breastfeeding vouchers to new mums.
160 quid in shopping vouchers for the first 6 weeks of the babys life and 200 if you go up to 6 months.
Im a ftm and I had crippling horrible guilt that I couldn't breastfeed. I really wanted to but my milk didnt turn up until 9 days after my baby was born. I think was something to do with 44 hour labour which ended in an emc a few weeks before my due date.
I am just furious, furious that women are being treated like foolish little ladies who need a cash incentive to feed their babies in the way the powers that be say is best.

Yes - for instance to me I look at this voucher proposal and it's a drop in the ocean. Really the amounts involved wouldn't go anywhere towards delivering any if the very good ideas suggested on this and the other thread on this topic. But people are nonetheless very upset by it.

What this has done though is generated a huge amount of discussion, countless real life stories, and national headlines. All of which is a good thing. There is evidence right here about people's experiences.

Exactly! It's not just the money, it's what the money MEANS to people.

I think it's a daft idea. I wanted to breast feed and wasn't able to. I'd feel even worse if I then missed out on some money.

Also I had a colleague who lived on a rough estate and said there were plenty of mums there happy to sell me their state supplied baby forumala. I was horrified but then I wonder what were the babies drinking? I'm hoping it was breast milk and their mum's just on the make. So I feel a bit doubtful about some of the evidence that mum's don't breastfeed.

"I think it's a daft idea. I wanted to breast feed and wasn't able to. I'd feel even worse if I then missed out on some money."

This is a tiny pilot study, funded by money totally separate from the NHS maternity budget, which is intended to find out whether a cash incentive might breakdown some barriers to trying breastfeeding AMONG COMMUNITIES WHERE ALMOST NO ONE BREASTFEEDS, NOR HAS DONE FOR GENERATIONS. There are communities like this in the UK, where most women see breastfeeding as something positively odd or unwise.

Can I just add - that very few people on this thread seem worried about the fact that the majority of new mothers on benefits will receive upwards of £450 towards formula in their babies' first year of life (despite the fact that the vast majority of these mothers COULD breastfeed), and that there are tens of thousands of women receiving this money every year, compared to just a few hundred mothers on this pilot receiving £200 to incentivise them to breastfeed?

I have yet to hear a chorus of outrage about this.

Can I just add - that very few people on this thread seem worried about the fact that the majority of new mothers on benefits will receive upwards of £450 towards formula in their babies' first year of life (despite the fact that the vast majority of these mothers COULD breastfeed), and that there are tens of thousands of women receiving this money every year, compared to just a few hundred mothers on this pilot receiving £200 to incentivise them to breastfeed?

I have yet to hear a chorus of outrage about this.

The vouchers for formula that used to be called milk tokens are now called healthy start vouchers. They can be used to buy formula milk, cows milk or fruit and veg. They are given to all new mums who meet the criteria, regardless of method of feeding.

What money saving due to better health though? my friends breasy fed two kids cost the nhs a fortune as they're there every other week with horrible illnesses or always have hacking coughs. my trojan horse ff little man has NEVER had to go to the docs once. The health issue ia not obvious in my circle.

Geppagip I see what you're saying, but unfortunately it's just an anecdote rather than a meaningful set of data. You just can't draw any useful, statistically significant conclusions from observing a group that small.

catellington
You're feeding her again? Mine were on a 4 hr schedule from birth
Well you won't be feeding much longer, once she gets to 6 months, I don't think it's right beyond that
Oh it's so easy to go out at night ( in London, an hour train ride away from home) you just express and then someone feeds her with a bottle (at 5 weeks, dd had never had a bottle)

Those comments were the same my MIL came out with, along with a friends mum, both had never breastfed. My MIL's idea of being on a schedule was that she'd let them scream until 4 hrs had gone and then wake them, if necessary, to feed them. TBH, she boasted about some crazy things with her babies that I would never want anyone to know so ignoring her opinion was easier. My friend spurred on by her mother insisted that I should stop feeding at dead on 6 months as we were approaching 6 months she made a big song and dance about how great it'll be now you're stopping.

I think anybody who suggest expressing as an everyday thing should have to be set up with a pump for an 1/2 an hour every hour (you don't have to be lactating to do this) and then they can have an opinion on BF mothers pumping to go out.

Katie Hopkins on this morning yesterday 'you can literally smell the breastmilk when you walk into Costa' (or similar) - actually pretty offensive and I don't think it would be considered acceptable to ridicule ff in that way on national tv or anywhere else.

She's an idiot and I personally think This Morning should have its knuckles rapped for given her airtime. They chose her because they knew she'd come out with something akin to that, instead of encouraging healthy debate they chose an offensive nobody