Fewer than 1% of mums exclusively breastfeed for six months nationwide

[hunkermunker]

Are the massively outspoken minority(!) on here making any difference to the MN population? Have we hit (or exceeded) 1% on here?

Zazas, I think that women are told they'll fail at exclusively bfeeding before they even get to 4m that 6m seems like far too long - not because it is, but because there's SO much pressure from peers to start solids or give a bottle to "help them sleep all night" (which it doesn't).

The Mumsnet parenting news email says that only 1% were exclusively bf AT six months. But at six months, and consistent with the guidance, most babies will be starting on solids so that's going to skew the figures surely. Shouldn't it be measured a bit before then to exclude the solids issue?

I love that whole 'they'll sleep better at night' bollox. my mum and gran kept telling me to give dds formula to make they sleep better at night. They slept for 6 hours at night from 6 weeks!!!!

zazas, I didn't find it hard at all to wait until 6 1/2 months - in fact I rather dreaded the faff I thought weaning would mean. We did a version of BLW (not purist, he did have some mush and spoons) and it wasn't that bad - took until 10 or 11 months before he was really eating 'properly' though.

I think a bigger problem is the way baby food companies, for example, push their products as 'from/after 4 months', issue feeding 'plans' which assert quasi-scientific authority for their 'recommendations', bombard one with free samples/gifts (our register office must have sold my address to a series of baby food companies ) - and also the way many mothers are anxious not to be 'left behind'. I also think health professionals who recommend weaning as a sleep-inducing measure, or to 'fill up' 'big' or 'hungry' babies, don't help.

Take your point twinklemegan, but measure the numbers at each month and its probably still pretty poor. And (as I've posted before), bf figures are targets for the nhs and like most targets, fiddling goes on to meet them

I made it to 28 weeks with dd. She is still a breastmilk-monster at 21 months. Thank you mumsnet, and especially tiktok.

ds is 9 months and has never had a drop of formula but he did steal food from before he was 6 months and we started slowly blw.

that said he's only really started eating more than one meal a day last week! (but boy is he making up for lost time!)

Yes, good point Twinkle.

I would be interesting to look at figures for 5 months, or 5.5 months - those people would have got beyond the 4 month barrier, which I think is the really big obstacle here.

After 5 months, you're really in the 6 month camp even if your child nicks a crust off your plate a bit earlier than you intended.

I breastfed dd2 til she was nearly 3.

just don't get the bottle at night thing - pia i imagine to get that sorted while half asleep ;) It does help not to listen to others I guess - my mother would have a bottle in the baby's mouth everytime she cried - as obviously a sign she wasn't getting what she wanted for me

How do they compile the figures? Is it from the questions asked when babies are vaccinated and at health reviews? If so, how do they get the six months figure - my DS had a review at 8 months and nobody asked me. My doctor never asked me at the 3 month vaccinations either. I have to say I was really proud of myself that I could still answer "partially" at DS's 4 month vaccinations. Sadly it came to an end soon afterwards.

That should say it would be interesting...

I am very boring!

Only one in four babies is getting any breastmilk at all at six months though, TM.

Makes me wonder though - the rise in allergies, etc - oft-quoted as evidence that later weaning isn't effective in preventing them - nobody's doing later weaning, so, ya know, maybe it's early weaning that's the problem?

Surely though the main thing is that children are being bf, regardless of when weaning starts??? It's pretty poor that less than 50% are bf at 6 weeks!!!!

oink, it's an interesting point.

We've had other threads about this, and it seems that there is a difference between bf and exclusively bf.

So, a bit of bf is better than none, but exclusive bf has benefits above and beyond that.

Survey here

"Three-quarters of all mothers had given their baby milk other than breast milk by the age of six weeks, this proportion rising to 92 per cent by six months."

Oh I know the figures are really poor Hunker (but I'm hardly one to talk am I?) It's just that even your thread subject was a bit misleading on this one. I would suggest that more than 1% may breastfeed exclusively UP TO 6 months, but by measuring AT six months, or slightly after, the figures come out artificially low.

Probably not. I breastfed ds until he was over one, and dd until she was over two, but both had formula before six months. dd because I had incredibly painful nipples and mastitis and desperately needed a break. Both are very fine and no allergies.

Oh, and weaned ds at 4months, in line with guidelines

"There has been a marked trend towards mothers introducing solid foods later in 2005
compared with 2000. For example, in 2000 85% of mothers had introduced solid
foods by four months, but by 2005 this figure had fallen to 51%. This shift is evident in all countries and continues a longer-term trend in this direction."

This is good news.

I've not read the survey yet, but I'd suggest that the bullet point below the one you quote Hunker is just as worrying (ie less than half of women who had used formula in the last 7 days had followed the correct procedure for making it up).

"Only a negligible proportion of mothers (2%) were following Department of Health
guidelines in accordance with their precise interpretation - that is to delay weaning
onto solids until six months."

TM, I think there are threads on here that show that parents don't use "latest guidelines" for making up formula - I was reading one earlier today that said they prepared all the bottles in the morning and put them in the fridge, which isn't recommended now - but, guess what? The old "I did it and mine are fine" line heavily used

That is a sad statistic

Quotes from the survey (thanks for the link)

In 2005, 45 per cent of all mothers in the United Kingdom were breastfeeding exclusively at one week, while 21 per cent were feeding exclusively at six weeks

These figures are diabolical.

But more from the survey: Just under half of all mothers who had prepared powdered infant formula in the last seven days had not followed the key recommendations for preparing formula.

This explains why bf babies get less gastroenteritis: it's not that bf is better for you necessarily in this respect, it's that people are being lazy in making formula!!!!!!!!!