To think mothers should not be offered a financial incentive to breastfeed their babies?

[brasty]

This is based on a pilot study being reported on the news. I don't think we should be paying new mothers to breast feed. Instead we should be looking at proper support. New mothers used to not be discharged from hospital until breastfeeding was established.

I think I’ll be coming to the end of my breastfeeding journey soon. If there was a financial incentive I would continue longer as I have no income at the moment so the income would help. So it would work for me.

Ethically I find it a bit of a grey area (some women can’t breastfeed so this would be a bit of blow to them) but in terms of getting women to breastfeed it would undoubtably work for some.

I see your point but if I had been made to stay in hospital until feeding was established I'd have just given up and switched to bottles.

More support is definitely needed but I think the best support we had was surestart. That's all a distant memory now.
Maybe if their is a financial incentive it will encourage women to bf who otherwise wouldn't have bothered. The more that continues then the more 'normal' bf will be seen as. I don't know about others but within my social groups it's more socially acceptable to bottle feed than bf.

I didn't breast feed because I have a history of sexual abuse.

Why should I not get a cash incentive because I can't bf due to the trauma I've suffered?

I hate stuff like this. There are so many reasons for women not to breastfeed, why should they be penalised for that?

Personally I feel that the money could be better spent on re-establishing the support for mums who struggle to breastfeed. That all seems to have fizzled out

I just don't think it will work as an incentive. Out of my friends, those that could did - those that couldn't wouldn't have magically been able to manage if someone waved some cash at them.

Put the money into support - we only cracked it because our lovely community MW spent a whole afternoon with us. I bet she wouldn't be able to do that these days.

Or actually, put the money into child benefit...

I was kept in hospital for 3 days until I had got bf established and the support was amazing. I've been to breastfeeding clinics since leaving hospital. I wouldn't have bf without that support and I'm so thankful for it. Bottles seem so confusing in comparison. It's certainly not easy and the support i got in hospital was everything. Money wouldn't have changed that although I wouldn't say no if it was offered.

New mothers used to not be discharged from hospital until breastfeeding was established.

You do realise you cannot force someone to breast feed or hold them in hospital against their will.

Frankly there is enough bed blocking in hospital and a shortage of midwives, without having women who are performing a perfectly normal and natural function cluttering up the place.

Considering breast feeding is free and bottles and formula are expensive, isn’t there already a cost benefit to breastfeeding?

Do you have any idea how much it would cost the state to have new mothers staying in hospital until BF is established?

I do agree with support. Better training for visiting HV would be a start. A helpline maybe. better communication with mums to stop trying to tell that that BF is best and easy and straight forward but focus on troubleshooting for example. And access to short film to try and identify some key problems that new mums can encounter when trying to BF and how to solve them. But staying in hospital until BF is established is not a good idea.

I wish people would mind their bloody business about women’s choices. No one should have any opinion about how a woman chooses to feed her baby and of course it’s utterly ridiculous to offer cash inducements.

What a bloody stupid idea and how fucking insulting.

But breastfeeding already has a financial advantage-formula/bottles are very expensive.

It’s not all about you, Cheap. By that logic, why shouldn’t you get paid just as much as someone with a fancy job that they got because they knew the right people? Why shouldn’t you get the same education as those in Oxford University just because you didn’t get in? Why shouldn’t you have that dress just because it doesn’t fit you? And so on. Life isn’t fair.

Breast is best and there’s a shockingly low rate of breastfeeding in the UK. Whatever helps to solve that problem is a good thing. Rather than resenting nice things that happen to some people maybe we could just be glad some positive steps are being taken. It’s not enough but it’s a start.

This project has been completely misunderstood and misreported!

The incentives were given to mothers in deprived areas where most women did not breatfeed AT ALL. The incentives were given to women who had told midwives they were not planning in giving any breast milk even colostrum.

The scheme encouraged these mothers to give BF a go - thus improving health outcomes in deprived areas and saving the mums money on formula.

It has no relevance at all for women wbo started BF but didnt continue for whatever reason.

One of the people involved in delivering this programme was interviewed on the radio yesterday. There was more to it than just the money, and she was saying that it stopped breastfeeding being something that wasn't talked about, something hidden and perhaps embarrassing. It became something that everyone was discussing, and as a result it showed a 6% increase in breastfeeding rates. They had hoped for up to a 4% increase, so it worked better than they expected.

I was going to start a thread on this. What about the mums who ha e tried really hard to breastfeed but it just didn't work. It will make them feel even worse. And babies who need formula for medical reasons will also be ruled out. A fed baby is best. Wether it's breast or bottle. No one should be rewarded or made to feel inadequate.

Surely all the financial incentive that's needed should be the fact that formula isn't cheap?

There were rewards for 2 days of breastfeeding, so really short periods of time. So that would probably include everyone who started and then stopped later on.

Iwasjustabouttosaythat funnily enough I was just about to say that but couldn't think of a way to say it politely.

I think it's a bit unfair to the small percentage of women that physically cannot breastfeed (not those who don't want to). They haven't made a choice not to and nothing they can do will change that they can't feed. I can imagine that will make them feel even more shit.
I fed my daughter for 2 years but my older child was completely formula fed. You make the choices that work for your family at the time.
Also how are they going to police this? Do you have to squirt your boob at someone to prove it?!
Just no.

Completely disagree with it!

It’s making women who genuinely can’t breastfeed feel even worse than they already do.

I couldn’t produce enough milk for my daughter and watching her lose weight while my midwife kept pressuring me to keep going for 5 weeks with bleeding nipples and an exhausted starving baby was horrific. It’s only thanks to another sensible midwife who intervened at the right time that probably saved her from dehydration! I still feel so much guilt from it, I wish I’d trusted my instincts but she was my first and I had no idea.

Just as an aside about better support: one of the things this scheme did was make all the participants aware of how to get it. That makes a big difference.

@Twofishfingers : there is a brilliant, publicly funded helpline already, the National Breastfeeding Helpline (0300 100 0212). In theory all women are given the number on discharge, in reality, not, hence the above being important.

waterrat Thanks for that, I hadn't realised that.

Totally wrong. feed you baby how you want but just feed them don't give money to do it. I bf mine and thought "great no need to spend money to on formula " but I was lucky, the cost benefit is already there as it's free.