breastfeeding and shopping vouchers

[dibsforme]

m.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24900650?post_id=586171778_10152047576711779#=

so in certain areas women are being offered £200 in shopping vouchers if they breastfeed for 6 months.

I find this ridiculous. Seriously being paid to feed your child.

Agree, truly, truly insane plan. "Hey, I breastfed, of course I did, now give me the money."

Yes, i thought this was a bit grim too. Apparently they are going to 'police it' by having a MW or Health visitor sign a form ...

How much worse will this make the mums feel who struggle and fail to BF :(

But on the flip side, will it actually mean that some mums will be motivated not to give up at the first hurdle? I live in an area with very poor breastfeeding rates. At a baby group one mum with a very small baby was talking to her friend. She had stopped breastfeeding because she wanted to be able to see how much she was feeding the baby. I can well imagine that the prospect of vouchers might have encouraged her to stick it out a bit longer- at which point she'd have realised that it really doesn't matter that you don't know exactly how much baby is having, so long as you know they are having enough!

By the way- this is a research project, just to see if it helps. I really don't know why so many people are up in arms about a research project!

On another thread I read the excuse 'I don't want my boobs to sag'. Would they be tempted with some vouchers for a nice support bra?

Bribery to feed your child.

Daft policy, people should feed their children without incentives. Sheer madness to pay people and who would check?

Yes, you said that already, is that the sum total of your argument?

That was to dibsforme

Outrageous! Unless there's scope for back payments, I was lucky enough to be able to breast feed both of mine, where's my vouchers? Although even if offered them I think I would have to decline.

It is NOT a policy. It is research. Trying to find out if material incentives will increase breastfeeding rates. If (and yes, it's a big if) it does work, then it will be looked into more detail, ie will it save money in the long term (due to less illness) and how easy is it to police.

Surely the incentive is designed to influence people who either are against breastfeeding because they don't know enough about it, or those who as already stated, give up at the first hurdle.

Whilst I appreciate that not everyone is able to breastfeed, surely any incentive that increases uptake of breastfeeding can only be a positive thing, given the health benefits etc.

this is a ridiculous idea, basically it is penalising people who cannot feed!!

Surely the financial incentive of not paying £100s for formula milk far out values the vouchers offered? Isn't this a bit of a pointless exercise?

Er, it's an experiment. That's how we generally do science. Experiments. To gather data. You try stuff, and see what happens as a result.

As has already been said, this is a complex and emotive issue with a lot of factors to consider. Until you do the experiment, you don't have any idea how all those factors will interact and what the results will be. That's why you do the experiment. To learn more (I won't say "to find out all the answers", it's obv more complicated than that).

Sorry if I sound rather jaded and dismissive, but this is what I do for a living. I don't think it's anything that should really worry anyone right now. The media presentations of these sorts of issues rarely help, of course.

I don't think it's a bad idea at all if it encourages women to breastfeed in areas where not many people do. Normalisation of breast feeding is really important and this should help with this. Whilst the "breast is best" motto is familiar actually people make choices based on a myriad of factors. A financial incentive might be the tipping factor in favour for some women.

Oh, I was going to say, though - I do have some inherent doubts about the wisdom of explicitly linking breastfeeding with a financial reward. The role of rewards in motivating behaviour is complex and sometimes counter-intuitive. Adding a tangible, financial reward to a situation that previously relied on non-financial rewards, changes the nature of the transaction. That's very often not a good thing in the long run. It can have the effect of "cheapening" the behaviour that's at stake.

So yes, I suspect they might turn out to be be on a sticky wicket with this particular one. But as I say, this is why we do experiments - to test our theories and ensure future work is based on facts, not just the theories and the surrounding, possibly shaky assumptions.

CrohnicallyTired

It is NOT a policy. It is research. Trying to find out if material incentives will increase breastfeeding rates. If (and yes, it's a big if) it does work, then it will be looked into more detail, ie will it save money in the long term (due to less illness) and how easy is it to police.

What it will actually show is that material incentives will increase reported breastfeeding rates. And it also shows the contempt for taxpayers' money that is so widespread in the public sector.

make formula only available on prescription. that would solve the problem overnight. breasts are for feeding babies, its a rare woman who really can't, most just 'won't'.

make the payment retrospective. I've got a 31 year old who can vouch that I fed her for the first four years and three months and was a volunteer breastfeeding counsellor for twelve years. I must be owed a fortune in john lewis vouchers.

I just wonder if money could be better spent on better support in breastfeeding. With my 3rd I had so many issues and nearly gave up, it took a good couple of months to settle. I stuck to it because I had fed my other 2 and knew what it could be like. When its your 1st and in pain without support £200 isnt going to cut it I don't think.

"It's a rare woman who really can't - most just won't".

You say that as if there's something wrong with women exercising personal choice in the matter

I was surprised that some people were so outraged by this, until I saw the media misrepresentation of it.

It is just some research by a university I think. Involving about 100 new mothers in a certain area of Sheffield.

I believe similar research in USA seemed to show it was the most effective and cheapest way to increase breastfeeding among certain socio-economic groups. This would hardly be showing contempt for taxpayers money if it was the most cost effective way, especially when it would save money in the long term (reducing illness) if successful.
It is only research, the results could be interesting and is definitely worth looking into.
Surely increasing breastfeeding rates would be a good thing?

I can see the reasoning behind it and am optimistic that it will be successful.

Let's not have a knee jerk reaction before we see the results.

puntasticusername

Er, it's an experiment. That's how we generally do science. Experiments. To gather data. You try stuff, and see what happens as a result.

The problem I have with it is that it is not really science. The conclusion has been drawn before the data is even gathered.

redshifter

I believe similar research in USA seemed to show it was the most effective and cheapest way to increase breastfeeding among certain socio-economic groups. This would hardly be showing contempt for taxpayers money if it was the most cost effective way, especially when it would save money in the long term (reducing illness) if successful.

Are you saying that there is a causal link between long term illness and bottle feeding?

flatpack "the conclusion has been drawn before the data has been gathered".

Has it? Citation, please?

Formula on prescription? Yeah drs have time to waste on that. (Actual prescription formulas aside)

I'm an adult I'm allowed to choose what's best for my family.