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.

Peaches did the scheme encourage you to try b/f or were you going to anyway and it was an added bonus to keep going? Do you know others who did it and did they flip from using formula from the off to trying b/f beacause of it?

To be honest I feel a bit uncomfortable about using money to persuade women to do something which is deeply personal with their bodies.

No I was always going to bf if I could. It just meant i had little targets to reach, like ok, I've made 3m, let's see if I can get to 6m.
I carried on bf for 19m because that was all I knew and I stuck to what was working for me, through biting and all!!!

No one I met was doing it for the vouchers. No one.

wild how we put so much pressure on bf
You never hear women being chastised for c sections despite evidence suggesting vaginal births are best, transfer antibodies etc 'it wasn't working out' 'would have died without intervention' 'not for everyone'- same phrases just different scenario.

Things like marital status of parents, education level, diet, income, habitat, level of interaction, childcare all play a more important role in child's development and life chances. Culture and social capital discussions never include bf or ff because IT JUST DOESNT MATTER

Well I can't see anybody owning up to being incentivised by the vouchers peaches even if they were. I know when I had my first baby I was really struggling financially and a financial incentive might have encouraged me to carry on with bf even if just because I would have been able to buy more BF friendly clothing and be able to get out of the house more. I don't think anybody who doesn't want to breastfeed at all will be incentivised to do so by the vouchers but it might encourage some to continue breastfeeding for longer because they have a target to meet.

Support is shocking in this country though. I have a few friends who at the first mention of supply concerns to their HV were advised to do formula top up feeds. Top up feeds only have a negative impact on supply and most people don't have supply issues that can't be rectified.

Tongue tie referrals take too long as well and many women will give up BF whilst waiting for a tongue tie referral unless they can afford to go private.

Notme no one would suggest that a ff baby from higher socioeconomic background would end up worse off in life than a bf one from a disadvantaged background simply because of b/feeding. I agree the long term benefits (if there are any) of b/f are impossible to measure because of all these other factors. There is a large scale study that suggests it could make a diff despite background but I wouldn’t say it proves anything. The fact remains that breast milk is healthier for young babies to ingest leading to less babyhood illness therefore it seems wrong that b/feeding seems to be exclusively middle class in the UK and surely anything that tries to rebalance that is good.

I think everyone needs to be less protective over their own choices tbh, this post is supposed to be about promoting bf through financial reward, not a debate over what is best.

If you breast feed great, it's not for everyone. I tried it and nobody at any point (5 years ago) educated me about vitamin D3, nobody even checked my levels first. It was merely sold to me as been fantastic for myself and the baby. Well it turned out my D3 and b12 levels were low all along, and boy did my baby suffer for it. We are under a paediatrician and occupational therapist for his legs now. That been said I've herd these days mothers are advised to take vitamin D, which is a relief! I formula feed my DC3, I didn't want to take the risk again. However that is highly expensive, time consuming but it also means my DH can help etc.

My health visitor said she doesn't care how women feed their babies, what's important is they're fed. So there really is no need for all the shaming, everyone has their own reasons and so be it. We should respect and support eachother.

I can see why they’ve done and I can see how it might work to slightly increase bf rates in deprived areas, but I think what is actually needed is cold hard facts about breastfeeding and better education around it.

I agree that hospitals make you feel like you Baby is going to wither and die if they haven’t fed so many times within 24hrs and that puts a huge amount of pressure on new mums-often seeing many fail at the first hurdle, unless your baby is tiny for birthweight hardly feeding in 24hrs is not the massive issue it’s made out to be, all of mine spent to first 24hrs after birth pretty much just sleeping, before bf really got going, all were fine.

Formula companies give a very false impression of how much milk a newborn needs. It would be a hell of a lot more accurate if they made newborn starter premodern bottle packs in just 1oz servings and not the 2.5oz they currently do, seeing the larger bottles makes women think that’s how much a newborn should be taking whereas the stomach is absolutely tiny in the first week.

Another misconception by many is “I didn’t have any milk” there should be far better education surrounding this...women expect to see something coming out their boobs and when it doesn’t it frightens most into thinking they are not producing milk....when in reality only tiny amounts of colostrum are produced until nearer a week after birth when the milk finally comes in. There is such a thing as insufficient glandular tissue that Truely does mean the women doesn’t produce enough milk, but there are in reality very very few cases. FWIW I never saw anything coming out of my boobs until a good week after my last birth, couldn’t barely squeeze anything out either, if I didn’t know the above I would of been convinced I wasn’t producing any milk.

Myths such as breastfed baby’s are awake all night and don’t sleep through, again need to be dispelled...it really doesn’t matter if ff or bf, some babies sleep through early, some don’t, it should not be associated with how Baby is fed. Again fwiw my bf baby went “through the night” (11-6) from 9 days old....yes really, 9 days old(it nay lasted till 6m though until teeth came through and then it was like having a newborn again!!)

I would agree with a previous poster, better strategies for supporting mums bf would be maybe a voucher for nursing clothes or bras, they are things that might hold women back from trying/carrying on if they are short of money...one nursing bra for me cost £25, each nursing top was at least £15 , a free pack of washable breastpads could be another idea.

There should be less bullying and preaching and making Mums feel a failure. Nobody has the right to preach to somebody who has made their choice over their own body and baby.

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

If you are on certain benefits you are given milk tokens, these can be spent on formula so there is no cost benefit if you are in the group this is targeting.

I suppose it is putting from deprived areas into the same situation as MC mothers, ie there is a financial incentive.

Do you think there actually is though Portia? I know when I couldn’t bf my first child I felt inadequte etc and probably perceived preaching and bullying but in reality no one actually did bully me and the preaching is just something I probably felt sensitive to due to not bf but nothing was actually directly aimed at me personally....

Miracles I think it very much depends on the HCPs you come into contact with. Some do push the point more than others. The breast is best message is an important one but I think the NHS should be able to mention formula as an alternative when the mother is at her wits end. There should be a discussion where they can say something like if you want to continue breast feeding we will get you all the support you need but baby will be ok on formula. They seemed to be banned from mentioning it. All I got was "well we aren't allowed to say anything about formula but... If your struggling..."

Financially if you compare bf and bf in relation to mums on low incomes/benefits who would qualify for milk vouchers, mums who ff have an initial outlay of approx £20 on bottles, say £20 on a steriliser, so about £40-50 compared to a bf Mum whose initial outlay would probably be £50-75 on 2-3 nursing bras, £45-100ish for nursing clothing and £20 on breastpads...so about £50 for the ff mum compared to approx £100-200 for the bf mum. It’s easy to see why that’s a massive hurdle for someone on a low income!

If you don't know anyone who breastfeeds, then it will not seem like a normal choice. I thought the pilot was aimed at women like this?

Also when I have been really skint £200 in shopping vouchers would make a massive difference. And I would have lied to get them.

Makingmiracles I spent around £20 on a couple of crappy nursing bras to begin with, £10 for a tube of Lansinoh, £10 on pads and £20 on a manual pump.
Clothes though? Some women might find them helpful but I just wore vests and button down shirts. You don't need clothes specifically designed for nursing

Yeah I guess it will vary among women, I’m unlucky in the fact when I was feeding I was a ridiculous K size, so had to order online as no shop I could find sold nursing bras that size, I struggled with discreet feeding with non nursing specific clothing too! Forgot about the lansinoh -that in my opinion should be given out free in satchets some people I know were given it by mws, but not others, a whole tube was a waste of money as I only really used it the first few weeks, probably used less than a third of a tube!

I used so much lansinoh as every time one nipple healed, the other would get sore. That cycle continued for 6 weeks. I applied it after every shower and before every feed. Really found it a total life saver. After, I used it on my lips and the odd bit of nappy rash. DH likes it too!

Nearly 24 hours since the OP posted. Interesting.

Anything that helps increase breastfeeding sounds good to me!

itsnotme I mostly wear normal vests and button down tops when BF but I still had to buy them specially to feed in as normally I wear dresses or tunic tops and you can't easily feed in those. I also needed breastpads for the entire time I BF due to leakage. I got through at least a full box every week. I needed sleep nursing bras as I had to wear pads at night to prevent soaking the bed and didn't want to wear my daytime bras for comfort reasons. So the initial outlay was expensive and a few months in I bought a pump and some bottles and a steriliser (waste of time though as he would ever take a bottle).

Hi havingahorridtime yes I suppose I did spend a fair bit too. I got bumper packs of pads on amazon to save money and also bought washable ones. I, too, had insane amounts of leakage. Even now, 23 months in, the other one still leaks when DS feeds! I also had to get refitted for nursing bras as I initially bought the wrong size.
I don't know how much formula is, never had a steriliser and only ever 5 bottles so I don't know if I have ended spending more than a ff

It's not about penalising those that won't, it's a misguided attempt to encourage those that won't.
Not being able to is actually very rare, but the uk has some of the lowest bf rates in the world.
200 quid actually isn't that great an incentive anyway in the long run but 'they' are just trying to get breastfeeding normalised and common again.
I'm regularly around other mums with babies and I don't know a single one that does. That's their choice of course, each to their own but if there are even just a few that will have a go even just for the vouchers then great.

We had a hv today for DS 6 week check up and got on to the subject of bf. She said she knows one woman who was banned from her bf support group for giving her DD ONE bottle of formula (her DH took a night feed so she could sleep)
She also said that she had been banned from referring disadvantaged families to the town's only food bank as they were handing out formula... to mum's that were already ff... which is totally fucked up! We said maybe if the NHS wasn't so militant 9about it that more women might be tempted to try

You are right! More support is needed!
10 years ago I had my first DD. I was 21 (quite immature 21)
I had my DD on the monday. By Wednesday my baby was still not latching on properly. I was still in hospital. By this time I was crying constantly, feeling like a failure - I wanted to so desperately feed my baby on the breast.
My mother in law spent all Tuesday night on the phone to me. Keeping me calm, (we really didnt get on, yet she was so supportive and helpful with my DD)
All i had from the midwives was 5 mins trying to latch baby on before they said 'try later'. I felt no support. In fact I felt like i was a crap mother taking up their time.
On the Wednesday my dad sat with me calming me down, talking to me whilst I tried to feed again. This was completely new territory for him as my Mum didnt breastfeed at all. Between my dad and my mother in law they got me to a state where I was calm and we suddenly got it.
The support I had from professionals was next to nothing. Had it not been for my MIL and DDad I would have given up. My now ex did his best to support but hated seeing me upset so he started to think maybe it would be better to formula feed.
1 year later I was still feeding DD.