Being ‘paid to breastfeed’ - your thoughts?

[SarahMumsnet]

The BBC's reporting this morning that new mothers living in some areas of Derbyshire and south Yorkshire are to be given vouchers for shops including Matalan, Mothercare and John Lewis if they breastfeed their babies. These will be given out as part of a study by the University of Sheffield, aimed at discovering whether “financial incentives” will increase the uptake of breastfeeding in parts of the country where rates are low; mothers will receive vouchers worth up to £120 if they breastfeed until six weeks, and another £80-worth if they continue to the six-month mark.

The scheme, according the senior researcher on the project, is intended "as a way of acknowledging both the value of breastfeeding to babies, mothers and society, and the effort involved in breastfeeding. Offering financial incentives ... might increase the numbers of babies being breastfed, and complement on-going support for breastfeeding provided by the NHS, local authorities and charities."

We've been asked by the beeb what Mumsnetters make of the idea; what's your reaction?

there is a natural financial incentive to breast feeding. its saving what you would have spent on formula.

pettyprudence and visualiseahorse great ideas. I agree. Breastfeeding needs a marketing campaign and image change and there ought to be practical help. It needs to be normalised. I bf but almost never see anyone else bf especially on TV. It can't be expected that bf will become mainstream the way things are.

As I said before, even on mn where there is such abundant good information, there are ridiculously naive ill informed and often offensive comments about bf virtually every day, so changing attitudes more widely will be an uphill struggle to say the least.

At least the voucher pilot has us all talking about it.

daughter was breastfed till age 4 and breastfed her dollies. her daughter, two tomorrow, is still breastfed and feeds her dollies, correct positioning etc just like her mum did.
that's how you make breastfeeders.

Another who thinks spend the money on well-trained breastfeeding advisors, including tongue tie training, enough to be at the hospital and visiting people at home.

It's social engineering gone mad. With all the 'breast is best' campaigning out there, if the health of your newborn + formula savings isn't incentive enough, £200 worth of shopping vouchers just isn't going to register on anyone's radar.

I BFed for 15 months, however I seriously considered switching to formula several times in the first 10 weeks. I was not getting the right support, conflicting messages from various midwives, severely cracked and bleeding nipples, and a baby who never seemed satisfied. My husband, who was formula fed himself, tried to 'support' me by letting me know it was ok to give up.

I am a very strong willed person and thankfully hubby did not actively pressure me to stop (in spite of the 'support'), however many of my friends have faced pressure from family and friends to give up by 3 months.

I would have much preferred to get that £200 in the form of one-to-one professional breastfeeding counselling.

After all, there's truth to the teaching, "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach him how to fish, feed him for a lifetime."

Agree with all the others who say money should be better spent on advice and support. I currently live in Australia (where breastfeeding rates are higher) and had access to a breastfeeding clinic somewhere in my area every day of the week. Mums could just drop in without an appointment and get support and assistance. I certainly found it invaluable and I probably wouldn't have continued feeding DD for as long as I did without it.

Tiktok - some cons that I personally found with bfing are:

• My anxiety and stress levels in first weeks when I just didn't know whether I'm going it correctly, is baby getting enough milk etc
• No sleep as DD needed to be fed around the clock every (mostly) 1.5hrs
• Not being able to express so worrying that my supply is low and no one else being able to feed DD but me
• Losing out on social life as I don't feel confident enough to feed the baby outside

Like I said, though, these are, or better said were, my personal cons re bfing, but they are so miniscule compared to the pros of bfing and I wouldn't give it up for anything.

I was told in hospital I was feeding correctly. The day after I came home a midwife I had never met before told me I was doing it all wrong, showed me what to do for 5 seconds then left. The next day a lovely midwife assistant came to see me and helped me get sorted. She came again a few days later but I was struggling. She told me she wasn't allowed to come again. My hv offered to help but was useless and there was no way she was putting her grubby bitten fingers anywhere near me or my baby. After that I struggled on but never enjoyed it and was trapped at home much of the time because I couldn't feed whilst out. After 6 weeks I gave ds a bottle of expressed milk which he wolfed down & it was amazing but expressing is soul destroying imho & took longer than he was prepared to spend lying by himself so I stopped altogether and we've never been happier. Breast feeding isn't cheaper than formula because mums eat loads more because they get so hungry (I noticed a huge difference when I stopped bf). I totally agree more should be spent on proper bf support but I also strongly believe that those of us who are bright enough to be able to boil a kettle, operate a steriliser and have access to clean water (ie are not living in third world) should not be vilified every 5 minutes for choosing to give formula. The breast feeding propaganda I was given when pregnant was appalling. It is shocking that the nhs or whoever it is thinks it's ok to say if more mothers breastfed the nhs would save lots of money. How about targeting obesity and smoking and leaving mums alone for once?

I started breastfeeding my eldest lad and by 6 weeks he had lost weight and was continually crying and not thriving, it was only when I told the HV I wasn't moving till I was taken to hospital to sort him.

He was found to have an intolerance to my milk and would have to go on a formula milk, to think that this government are even thinking of bribing parents is a disgrace. There are many instances like mine where babies have to have formula and these mums are going to miss out just because they aren't breastfeeding.

Thankfully he grew out of it and is a strapping 23 yr old

I think that the reason that women in this country do not breastfeed is because they have no help to do so. To some it comes naturally, but for most mothers and babies it is a skill which needs to be learned, and at the moment the NHS provides little or no help with this. Since many families now live far apart, new mothers often do not have help with breastfeeding from their own mothers either. Generally women are now discharged from hospital within a few hours of giving birth. In my experience the midwives in hospitals are rushed off their feet and have no time to sit with a new mother helping her to feed her baby. Breast feeding counsellors are scarce and equally rushed. Once home, midwives no longer visit every day after the birth. With my last baby we only had a couple of visits from the midwife in the days after we came home. A health visitor came once and then invited us to come and see her again when my son was about 10 months old! There are no longer weekly HV clinics at the GP’s surgery. Instead I got text messages from the Health Visitor with generalised information about a baby the same age as mine. When my 5 day old baby was briefly unwell we were sent, not back to the maternity ward, but to the hell of A&E. In short, new mothers are left largely on their own, to sink or swim. They have precious little contact with any midwife following the actual delivery and so no-one helps or teaches them to breastfeed. in the absence of that support, bottle feeding feels like the safe option, because at least you can be sure that your baby is being fed with a known quantity of milk. I breastfed two of my three children but it was not an easy process and mainly due to some patient help from my mum and my husband, and sheer bloody mindedness on my part, that I refused to be beaten by it.

It is odd that the “powers that be” in the NHS can’t work this out. The NHS seems to think that you can make people breastfeed by putting up posters, offering shopping vouchers (!) or emotionally blackmailing parents by telling them it’s bad not to breastfeed. It’s like trying to teach someone to ride a bike, cook, ski, drive a car, speak French - whatever skill it is, by shouting at them that they simply must do it. What you need to do instead is to invest the time, money and resources to show and teach mums and babies how to feed. Then rates might go up.

If I was given £200 I'd spend it on a private consultant to release my Ds' upper lip and tongue tie as I can't afford it.

For months now I can only manage 2 feeds a day and always cut them short because of the pain. The teeth marks in my nipples remain for hours.

happydaze I think you are completely wrong - while there are hundreds, thousands of women who want and hope to breastfeed but are faced with issues like tongue tie, mastitis, late supply, these should be the women who receive additional support from trained consultants and midwives, access to practical help (not a 2 week wait for a tongue tie clinic for a 9-wk-old desperately underweight baby whose mother is clinging to the thought that if she just tries harder her son will be able to bf)

The more we can help people who actively want to bf, the more positive stories and outcomes there will be, the more visible and normal it will seem, then start tackling those who don't currently choose to do it. This scheme is upside down.

Oh and as others have said, a good start to the campaign to promote bf would be to ban page three and other publications that promote breasts solely as sexual objects.

We don't pay people to give blood, or other donation of body parts/fluid, even though blood transfusions are far more life-saving than breast-feeding is. I don't think we should be giving a financial incentive in this way. It's absurd and misses the point (and unlikely to work).
The money could be far better spent on other NHS services.

Happydaze, I don't agree that the majority of women in the UK CAN breastfeed. Sorry.

If it was that difficult to bf then humanity would have been wiped out long ago. People need to know it takes time. The mum has to give herself to the babies needs and bf on demand. People who do have medical problems need help with bf but the majority just need to get on with it

I never said it was difficult (though challenge anyone to bf a baby with ULT and TT and teeth), I said the majority in the UK 'can't'.

And giving £200 won't change that.

Incidentally, can you spend it on wine?

Utter rubbish! Breastfeeding is free anyway so why pay Mums to do it?!

And what are they going to do if they catch a Mum bottle-feeding? How do they police this? Will they shove the vouchers up her blouse when she gets her breasts out to feed, and grab them back as soon as she's seen in public with a bottle!

Come on - lets get real - I was lucky [yes, I use that word advisedly] to be able to breastfeed and enjoy it, but that doesn't mean everyone else should or could!

This policy is actually the wrong way round if they're going to do it at all - we should be giving the Mums who have to bottlefeed the vouchers, as they will need the money more!

i worry about women in abusive relationships with a partner putting significant pressure on them for a £200 voucher. dreadful idea in my honest opinion. Maybe better education and help in the hospitals. I was treated like a piece of meat after having DD. The memories of trying to breastfeed were more traumatic than the birth and I did not even try with my following two as it made me want to be physically sick. i have three healthy, gorgeous children.

Having happily and easily breastfed my first two children (and, quite frankly, had probably been, very irritating whilst doing it), it came as an enormous shock when my third was, quite frankly, completely useless at it. I cried for hours and hours at how useless I felt as my nipples bled and my 3rd time round uterus contracted in a pain I had never before experienced, and didn't again, even after having another baby a year later.

Ending that cycle of misery, allowing me to get back to what I was kind of good at (ie just being a Mum), was the best thing I ever did. And, as much as I like John Lewis', I wouldn't have changed anything for 200 quid of their vouchers!

Apologies, for all the quite franklies in that post!!

I breast feed my baby girl!she is now 31 ! and now having a child of her own which she wants to breast feed!, I got no support 31 years ago I basically was made to feel a freak!!! So things have not changed! I only stayed with breast feeding as my daughter wouldn't take a bottle ! I was asked to give a talk mmm I didn't!!!( I was the only mum out of 9 to feed my baby) I struggled !!
Breast is best that what they say !! Yes I agree !! Even if it's for a few days!! Don't beat yourself up if you can't do it !!

Who decided to reward mums for breast feeding !! What a load of b.....s
Only certain parts of country though !!!
Beggars belief !
Some expectant mums want to breast feed other expectant mums don't !!plus there are mums who want to and can't to me the ones that can't need to be supported!

The only thing this is going to happen is the mother who have not a lot of money ,telling midwife, health visitor ( I have breastfeed my baby!) how are they going they going to police this ffs !(please don't come back with her boobs will leak, not everyone do !!!!!)

I had no help what so ever 31 years ago !! My daughter wants to breast feed and I know things haven't changed help wise ! ! Discussing !!! I struggled big style !but my little girl wouldn't take a bottle(a bottle would of been so much easier !) I don't regret breast feeding my girl but I would of thought there would of been more support 31 years on !! Nope ! Thing is babies who are bottle feed there teats have changed big style over the last 31 years ( more like nipples now !????)

They have drop in clubs now for new mums - it would be obvious who is breast feeding because they would be breast feeding, not formula feeding. Not rocket science.