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.

PersianCatLady gentleness to gut I think? Its only been 2.5 years but I can't remember. Just that there is huge pressure put onto preemie moms especially that the baby needs to magic of best milk over formula or the risk of NEC increases. NEC is truly horrific that even that vague threat is enough to scare many new moms. I had planned to try to bf anyway so i wanted to pump but when I see some of the tears from moms on my preemie group I think the all money needs to go into support not incentives

Thrived on condensed milk?
Can you look at two eighty year olds and tell which one was fed condensed milk and which one was BF??

My father was raised on condensed milk. 77 tomorrow. Lower BP than my bf mum and in good health.

word @ persiancatlady. Sibling studies (where one sibling breastfed and one not) show no difference when you compare within families (in fact slightly higher rates of asthma in breastfed babies) but huge benefits for breastfed babies when you compare overall . So really all that you are seeing from these studies is that healthy, wealthy more educated people are more likely to breastfeed but are also more likely to have healthy babies who grow up to have better life chances. Breastfeeding is not the reason for this.

I would really like us to stop all the hysteria about breastfeeding. I think it is really damaging to women and babies health. My midwife and health visitor told me they were not allowed to tell me how to make up a bottle safely when I was bottle feeding. When i was in the hospital unwell after having one of my dc, the midwife told me my dc needed formula but that they were not allowed to give it to me on the NHS although I was not able to establish breastfeeding at that time and they told me my baby had low blood sugar and needed fed. In the end, they did give me it as I was a private patient but it seems like a ridiculous state of affairs to me and very poor patient care.

I'm just stating the fact that you can bf collect your £200 pass go then change your mind and do ff.
Its is entirely a Mother's choice.

So a mum who smoked and drank throughout her pregnancy but bf easily can get a financial reward and a pat on the back but a mum who gives up all vices and eats healthily etc but struggles to bf is made to feel like shit.

No. Of course not. I still think that being fed condensed milk as a baby would have the potential to cause health problems later down the line, if not immediately.
This has made me crave condensed milk

Benefits are bf are massively overstated but the difficulties to mothers are not. I don't know a single person who found it painless and easy - the ones still going are doing so at great personal cost as partners do next to nothing to help as everything is seen as mothers role now, they are exhausted after long nights feeding and fobbed off with oh it's normal. They have boobs down to their knees, myself included. My baby uses my nipples as chew toys. When I read about how bf has no significant or measurable benefit I was destroyed. I wish my baby would take a bottle. Bf has ruined my relationship, I resent my child at times, I haven't slept properly in months and I have pnd. I see my ff friends getting 10 hours sleep, their babies nap and are happy thriving things and I honestly think why did I bother? I know all babies are different, ff doesn't guarantee sleep, blah blah - all bullshit us bf tell ourselves to get through it. £200 wouldn't convince me to do it again. £20,000 wouldn't even come close. Second baby, if I ever put myself through it, ff from the start no question

zsazsajuju
I agree.

zsazsajuju interestingly when I was on children's wars with DS so under 6 months they happily gave me formula for top up as I couldn't pump enough. All stage 2 stuff so when he was in and older we provided our own if it was a long stay. They also provided jarred baby food.

However it was formula or big kid food when we were in the big children's hospital so nothing suitable for a weaning baby.

I still think that being fed condensed milk as a baby would have the potential to cause health problems later down the line, if not immediately
Until National Formula (I think that was the name) came out in the late 1940s or early 1950s, it was either BF or condensed milk for most babies, unless you could afford a wet nurse.

Obviously it wasn't ideal but what is in this life.

Persiancatlady Wouldn't some people have just fed them cow's milk?

My baby had pku. That incentive
Programme I see as discrimination. Disability discrimination.

Wouldn't some people have just fed them cow's milk?
That is exactly what I said too but they didn't.

Don't forget most people didn't have fridges so maybe condensed milk was thought to be a safer option.

(PKU children cannot have a normal diet)

Benefits are bf are massively overstated but the difficulties to mothers are not. I don't know a single person who found it painless and easy - the ones still going are doing so at great personal cost as partners do next to nothing to help as everything is seen as mothers role now, they are exhausted after long nights feeding and fobbed off with oh it's normal. They have boobs down to their knees, myself included. My baby uses my nipples as chew toys

I disagree with all of this and this couldn't be further from my experience so far...

Some soreness during growth spurts maybe. Sleep deprivation - yes (but worth it) and a husband who helps as much as possible short of lactating himself!!

This was a study in a targeted area that let to an increase in breastfeeding? And it worked? I’m a bit dubious of the ethics of paying mums to breastfeed but if it works it works.

However I also think money should be spent on training midwives (or health visitors, etc) to pick up on and resolve tongue tie. 2 friends had tongue tied babies - they continued breastfeeding through sheer bloodymindedness but both said it was totally different once the tongue tie was resolved. I wonder how many mums have a tongue tied baby and give up before diagnosis.

"the ones still going are doing so at great personal cost as partners do next to nothing to help as everything is seen as mothers role now, they are exhausted after long nights feeding and fobbed off with oh it's normal. They have boobs down to their knees, myself included. My baby uses my nipples as chew toys"

I don't recognise this at all. I'm feeding my 18 month old and fed my older child to around the same age. My boobs are exactly as they were before I was pregnant (which is not down to my knees), and my DS2 doesn't use them as chew toys. I breastfeed precisely because it involves very little personal cost now. My partner does everything apart from milk feeds, so not nothing at all. It's not my role just because I'm breastfeeding.

I wish people would stop with this insinuation that breastfeeding is martyring yourself.

assassinated

No of course not. Smoking, obesity, alcohol all are know causes of disease and rightly the nhs and government highlight this.

Breastfeeding is entirely different as it’s s very personal, generality short term life style and personal preference choice that only affects new mums.

I can generally tell if a 60 year old has smoked 40 a day for 40 years and no one on earth can point out any adult or child and differentiate between those who were ff and bf.

Total nonsense and bloody insulting to women.

Benefits are bf are massively overstated but the difficulties to mothers are not. I don't know a single person who found it painless and easy - the ones still going are doing so at great personal cost as partners do next to nothing to help as everything is seen as mothers role now, they are exhausted after long nights feeding and fobbed off with oh it's normal. They have boobs down to their knees, myself included. My baby uses my nipples as chew toys

I also disagree with pretty much all of this. Getting breastfeeding established was tough, without question. But after about 6 weeks it became a really lovely experience; great for bonding, enjoyable, great for my mental health, easiest thing in the world. I loved the BF hormones, they made me feel very calm and serene. Once I stopped my boobs were actually smaller than before (and I gather that's not unusual). I'm pregnant again and they're back to enormous, but that's another story.

I think this is what's missed in a lot of the promotion. It's very tough at the start, but the benefits are reaped afterwards. And even if the health benefits were proved to be negligible, I'd do it again in a heartbeat because it was a lovely experience for both of us.

And to add I found bf easy and painless.

Spend the money on supporting women whatever their choices.

No one with any sense would suggest you could pick a random child and identify if they were formula fed or breastfed just by looking at them. That's not the point.

The NHS is mistaken then to care at all about breastfeeding rates? Why do they persist with mentioning it, as it would be a lot easier and cheaper just to accept that we have a formula feeding culture in the UK, and it doesn't make any impact to health generally at a population level.

Haven't RTFT but in answer to your original question, absolutely not. That's taking the nanny state to the next level. What next, financial incentives for vaginal deliveries?

@AhhhhThatsBass what is it about this trial programme that you object to particularly?

There's already a cash incentive to BF though, isn't there? Saving the £10/£15 a week on formula.

There's a lot of reasons that BFing doesn't work out, I don't think that a bonus cash incentive will swing it for anyone