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?

Someone has no doubt pointed this out, but there's a heated thread on this question on AIBU

I think vouchers for breastfeeding is a terrible idea. Give vouchers to all new mums, or those in financial need. Breastfeeding mums can spend it on upping their own diets, or breast pumps, nipple protectors, breastfeeding bras. FF mums can spend it on bottles and formula. Otherwise it's grossly unfair.

FF mums are demonised enough as it is. The pressure to breastfeed is so great that those who can't (and 'can't' doesn't just mean the 1-2% who don't produce milk, there are several other reasons for not being able to) end up feeling really crap.

It seems to me that lots of people, including NCT leaders and HVs, go round extolling the benefits of breastfeeding without really knowing what they are in any detail. From the statistics I've read, there are some benefits but they are not as enormous as unprofessionals would have you believe.

I've been lucky enough to not have many problems breastfeeding so could choose what to feed my babies but many don't have the choice and the get shouldn't make it worse for them

Better education all round is what the money should go on

The vouchers are not compensation for participating in the study, otherwise all the mothers who signed up would be eligible for them, regardless of whether they bf for 6 weeks, 6 months or switched to ff after a day or two. After all, the data from women who stop bf, for whatever reason, is likely to be of at least as much value in increasing bf rates as the data from women who sail through with no problems.

It is very clear from the article that the vouchers are a financial incentive to continue breastfeeding, not compensation for the mothers' time and effort in participating in the study.

FFS, this makes me so cross.

Why don't women just hand their bodies over to the government and be done with it. We're dictated to from the day we're born.

As long as a baby is fed then that's all that matters. I had to give up bfing at 6 months because I HAD to go onto ADs for severe PND and anxiety. The guilt I felt at giving up was overwhelming, I sat in the doctor's room sobbing at the thought of failing my son.

Paying mothers to breastfeed piles another load of guilt onto those that cannot.

It's insulting on so many levels.

Firstly, how a woman feeds her baby is entirely her choice and people need to stop interfering with that decision.

Secondly, if breastfeeding is such a magical and beneficial thing, then isn't that enough to convince the mothers who want to be convinced? Do they have such a low opinion of women that they think money would be a better incentive than information?

I wonder, is there a correlation between PND and BF? It seems the fear or guilt of "failing" when things don't work out, for whatever reason is sometimes a factor in the onset of PND. I have known two new mums have PND both were determined to BF and both had to eventually FF to save their own sanity.

"Breasts are not a self-contained, independent milk bar that a mother merely happens to have located on the front of her body. Breastfeeding is something a woman makes a choice to do" Glosswitch www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2013/11/bribes-breastfeeding-why-womans-personal-choice-made-so-difficult might interest some who haven't already seen and read it.

ItsOkay I totally agree! As long as the baby is fed! Mum should be as comfortable and happy in her own decision as possible. An incentive like this shouldn't make a difference.

Having to choose BFeeding or formula is difficult enough for those at that stage. Having a bribe to lean one way can only end up with people abusing the system and others having feelings of guilt and failure. I just don't think it would work as intended.

I didnt breast feed. It wasnt for me but I would defend the right of anyone who wanted to.

However I am going to put a different view here. The reason that so many women drop out is because its difficult to do. I think women are given the view its easy, you will get some support if needed (only if you know who to ask and where to look).

Some do try it and because it is so difficult give up.

I agree itsokay

Luckily with my second I'd already made the decision not to bf. Couldn't face the pain all over again. To this day I can't bare my chest touched as a result of the pain I experienced bf.

I therefore didn't give a crap what anyone else thought and no one even said a word when I asked for formula in hospital. My baby my business and they are loved and wanted with a family who adore them. Isn't that what it's all about. It's not a competition who can over one the most and bf.

ItsOkayItsJustMyDeathFucker why don't we indeed! but what is even worse than a government that doesn't have women's best interest at heart... other women who seem to have swallowed a shed load of propaganda and parrot it at every available opportunity without a care for how they make other women feel.

If the argument is thus: BF is best for babies, for their mental, physical and emotional health and this ensures that they grow up to fully meet their potential (lots of research etc,..) we want to ensure that part of meeting their full potential is that they are free, cognisant and happy individuals with the ability to fully think and rationalise. Why is it then that women are not accorded this consideration despite the fact that some of us will have been BF as babies?

Might it be, that women's bodies are not actually women's bodies at all and that we have no real autonomy over ourselves?

"Give vouchers to all new mums"

You're missing the point. BF mums save the NHS money. FF mums cost the NHS money.

Slight aside but re PND and BF, I think BF was one of the few things that actually held me together when I had severe PND with DS1, because I knew I could do it, unlike most of the other baby stuff that made me so anxious I was literally pulling chunks of my hair out. I got really pissed off at people who suggested that I stopped because "you need to look after yourself" and/or the stupid doctor who didn't even bother checking if I could BF on antidepressants with a large side order of "and you'll be able to get much more rest when you stop BF" (I breastfed on Lustral for over a year). All part of the BF-as-weird-lentil-weaving-martyrdom thing.

Obviously if someone has PND and BF is going terribly then it's not going to help, but there's definitely another side to the story and I get mildly irked when "BUT IT'LL GIVE WOMEN PND/WHAT ABOUT THE WOMEN WITH PND" comes up in the context of breastfeeding promotion.

Back to vouchers...

Personally, I think we all deserve the vouchers anyway for giving birth.

rubbish idea

patronising and pointless.

And for all that who think that women "should" bf in order to save the NHS money I can only say fuck off

I am appalled that anyone would suggest that a mother should base her feeding decisions on anything other than what is right for her and for her family- being told what to do with one's body 'for the greater good' is disgusting frankly.

I would dispute the suggestion that it has ever been shown that breastfeeding saves any money for the NHS in any event, but that is a separate issue which usually results in reams of scientific material being trotted out in a game of BF evidence top trumps which I don't care to engage in.

Incidentally my DS was admitted to hospital TWICE due to worsening jaundice which and prolonged failure to gain weight. This would not have happened had I FF from the start. Do we show up on any stats? Do we buggery....

Leedy it sadly massively exacerbated mine.... I think keeping it up helped after I had to combine but the weeks we realised that he had been failing to thrive so badly triggered an almighty relapse and meant I was ill for a very long time and off work for 18 months.

It might have been different if it had been more straightforward but all the HCPs recognise it as a factorin my postnatal illness as they're having an MDT and putting a written plan in place about bfing support ahead of this baby. Conflicting info and a general disregard for my mh needs ('I know you have OCD but we all have a bit of that, now fill in these charts and feed and express round the clock even though you've just started on meds for first time in your life and are strung up to the moon) were a real issue in terms of my mh struggles and bfing journy. Psych team intervened to get midwives to back off and reduce weighing etc but then no one monitored bfing progress and ds2 nearly ended up very poorly indeed... I've had to make a massive complaint about it.

Very tricky area as so individual.

My bfing cost the NHS a fortune!

According to the nhs, BFing saves you £42 a month compared to buying formula. So if you BF for 6 months you save £252. If they are offering this scheme to deprived mothers, perhaps on benefits then this should be a good enough incentive right? I am BFing my son partly because I'm a cheapskate and don't want to buy milk I already have. I know some people can't BF and that's a different issue. To me if you choose to FF before giving BFing a go its like someone offering a free sirloin steak dinner every night but declining it to go out and buy a doner kebab. Some people don't appreciate the value of money.

How do FF mums cost the NHS?

I am just asking the question of whether pressure to BF and fear of failure or guilt for giving up or not even choosing to BF combines with tiredness and other life changes to produce PND. I haven't asserted that there is anything about BF that causes PND (just for the record!) Is PND more common now? if it is why might that be? Pressure to BF, pressure to return to work? change of lifestyle from busy working consumer to hermit dwelling dish washer? could be lots of things or none?

Its strange really, loading the dishwasher might be more convenient but might use less energy than washing everything by hand, ditto all modern conveniences and yet women and their bodies, their right to autonomy and their own desires must be thwarted and any technological advance freeing us from BF is to be dismissed as woooo

What if we were to discover and then replicate the exact constituents or breast milk and can it, would that be ok? or would it be shunned, not on the grounds that it is less nutritious but on new grounds?

exact constituents of breast milk and can it

You do show up on the stats, myrubberduck....well, not you personally. But readmissions post-birth, and the reasons for it, are tracked ....they are among the figures hospitals are required to keep. There are a number of studies looking at readmission, and in particular those babies for whom breastfeeding has not been going well.

Wombles- how to ff mums cost the NHS more than mums who bf ?

"any technological advance freeing us from BF is to be dismissed as woooo"

Why do we all need to be freed from it? What about those of us who find it less onerous than making up bottles? I mean obviously modern formula is a massive technological advance over previous inferior breastmilk substitutes, but I'd hardly portray it as a triumph of the march of freedom away from breastfeeding, or that any breastfeeding promotion (however you feel about this scheme) is something akin to the Luddites.

Education should come before financial bribery surely ????

leedy I am not suggesting ALL women would want to be free of it, indeed even if there were no "added" health benefits to BF because FF was made (at some point in the future) from the same constituents as BM, some women would still choose to BF. I think it was Elaine Morgan in her book The Descent of Woman, a study of evolution, who made the point that had BF not been beneficial or enjoyable for women, early woman might have got up and left the baby to starve. Apparently Cat mothers purr with contentment when they feed their kittens, so its natural for mammals to feed their young in this way and beneficial for (some) women who choose to. Because we do now have a choice, even if those choices are loaded with guilt, sanctions or inducements.

However, if FF was as beneficial to babies as BM would the government still be coercing ALL women to BF with no respect for women's intelligence or autonomy? I think yes because the benefits of BM over FF are not as numerous as often suggested and women's mothering is being collapsed and condensed into one very short period. The other pressures of course are to get back to work, to earn spend and make yourself pretty. I don't see fathers being put under the same sort of pressures!

In countries that have a high success rate, I bet the mothers were not breast feeding because of financial incentive .... Also, some mothers may be loaded and not need money so how do we encourage them to breast feed ? In fact , most of my 'rich' friends did not breast feed because they felt it interfered with their social diary whilst my 'poor' friends did ! So it is insulting to target poorer mothers.....

leedy my objection to this is that there is already enough guilt piled onto women that cannot or choose not to breastfeed. This just adds to it. FF is not the work of the devil. Women have enough to contend with whilst pregnant (to drink or not to drink/ how much is safe/ can I eat this cheese, meat etc/ is ELCS worse then VB and on and on), this is just another area in which we are being fed opinions of those in charge and another way they can divide us so that we don't support each other when that is the essential thing.

As long as you feed your child, it will be okay. You want to bf, good for you, you want to ff, good for you.