What percentage of people ff/bf in your area?

[nymphadora]

I assumed most people bf now after the big push in the last 10 years but since having dd3 most people I've met seem to ff. At baby group yesterday the bfeeding lady said it's approx 50/50 at the hospital and then some bfeeders give up.

Obviously some people can't breastfeed ( I couldn't with dd2) but I was expecting much more bfeeding( is that because i come here?)So I wonderedif this was the norm?

Around 50% breastfeed at hospital, and about 25% are still breastfeeding a few weeks later. Where I live has one of the lowest rates in the country though.

Most people do bf - the stats show 78 per cent of mothers in England initiate bf.

But it is less in other parts of the UK.

In some areas of England eg parts of the South East it is as high as the high 80s. In other areas, it's no more than about 25 or 30 per cent.

Many stop within a short time, however.

When DS was 5 months, one of the h/vs at the GP surgery was doing a b/fing course and called to ask if she could observe me. She said that I was the only one she knew who was exclusively b/fing. This is in a major UK city.

Just over 50% initiate bf round here.

We have breastfeeding pockets where I live.
I'm a peer supporter and I was at a meeting yesterday, where our breast feeding co-ordinator who was running the meeting was explaining about breast feeding rates.
The national average initiation rate is about 76% and the national average of mums still exbf at 6-8 weeks is 46%. We have one very affluent area, which is next to mine where the latter figure is 60%, but in some areas it is as low as 10%. In on area, which probably covers a population of around 7,000 people she was explaining that they were sending invites to 16 mums to a relaunch of the bfing area. Because they are the only mums still bfing at 6-8 weeks. We were all a bit shocked, tbh!

I live near Hartlepool which has the lowest bfing rate in the country :( And a lot of the areas around Stockton & Middlesborough are not far off! Hence why we have been give a large amount of money for the peer supporter program.

Apparently initiation rate in Shropshire is 63% according to a PDF I found from 2007.

I moved here when dc1 was 6w and all my friends I've met since then,either from babygroups or nursery contacts or school contacts. dc1 is now 5 and I have never met anyone who didn't start by bf and nearly everyone I know bf to 6m. There are also at least 4 mums from dc1's class (of 20) who have bf at least one child for more than 12m. Makes me feel I should keep bf dc3 (age 3m) for more than the 8 or 10 months I bf the other dc for.The local hospital gives mums who want to ff a hard time (by not offering much help and the bf advisor at the hospital has been there for a long time and is fab.

Each time I have given birth (3 times) I have been the only mum breastfeeding on my postnatal ward. I have never met another real life mum in this area who breastfeeds, although I suppose there must be some. In my immediate neighbourhood there are 6 other children all roughly the same age as my ds1 (now 3 and a half), and they were all bottlefed. It's actually quite disheartening, it makes you feel like a wierdo for breastfeeding.

I wish I could find some official statistics, I suppose that's what you are really looking for!

Of the mums I know with babies a similar age to DD2 (4 months), 6 are FF, 3 are mix-fed and 7 are exclusively BF, including me. No idea what the official stats are, but I have seen several other people BF out and about, and I've never had any negative comments. In hospital I was the only one exclusively BF on my ward though, but I blame the midwives who seemed to be encouraging top-ups for anyone with the slightest BF issues

I don't know but DD3 still is bf aged 13 months and I've met maybe 25 other new mothers in the last year, and she's the only one that I know of breastfed beyond 6 months.

Oooh, no, that's mnot true- I just remembered that one of the other mothers is still bfing her 8mo.

Not just here then.

In the middle class bit of south London where I live, I literally do not know any mothers (out of the many I met when DD was tiny through baby groups, friends of friends, etc) who did not breast feed at all. I saw one person in hospital, but that was it.

There was, however, a significant fall off. I would say around 30% gave up within a few weeks because of problems and another 60% around six months. Only about 10% carried on to a year and, at 18 months, I only know one other person in RL who is still breastfeeding.

I think that's probably pretty good compared to a lot of parts of the country though. About 70% of babies were breastfed to six months (some with formula top ups, so not all exclusive). That's just my tiny bit of town though. If you took the whole of my borough it would be way way lower.

I don't know of anyone else exclusively breastfeeding. I went to a breastfeeding support group at the childrens centre and was one of only three people who went the other two were mixed feeding. That doesn't mean that There are not hundreds of breastfeeding women here obviously - I just don't know them!

I'm in the midlands and ds3 is six months old. Not anyone I've met didn't breastfeed at all. At baby group it's 50/50 now, but everyone started out breastfeeding. Quite a contrast to when ds1 was born over a decade ago and I was one of a few that breastfed for any amount of time.

I have a 3 month old DS and am in a group of about 12 people with babies the same age. WE're all quite middle class. Everyone started off breastfeeding. One is totally formula feeding, two are mixed feeding to some degree, and everyone else is still EBF. Pretty impressive really!