WHAT CAN BE DONE TO INCREASE BREAST FEEDING RATES IN THE UK.

[lissie]

we all know that postnatal care is a huge factor, but what else can be done?

i speak as a failed bf-er who will try again with every baby i have, but supports the mothers right to choose.

Well, what would have helped me was full whack pay for longer, but that won't happen. I was lucky to get what I got at all.

X posted expat, but there is still lots of advertising of formula here in the UK.

Do we really need to debate the benefits of breastfeeding though? Am pretty sure this was not what the OP had in mind.

Pannacotta: I don't join the Nestle debate because I like my cereals.

But, if I was an African woman, perhaps starving, perhaps with AIDS, would it benefit me to breastfeed my child?

Or would it benefit me to give him formula milk?

I agree statistics can be manipulated, but the body of evidence from around the world is hugely in favour of breastmilk as being a better source of nutrition than formula, henece the need to improve breastfeeding rates. The UK has one of the lowest rates in Europe! I disagree that everyone in the 1960's and 70's was bottlefed. I wasn't, most of my friends weren't and we were born in the 1970's.

Well, I was a sixties child, and almost everyone I knew was bottle-fed.

Desiderata perhaps you want to take up your argument with the WHO. I dont want to get drawn into a debate with you about the benefits of breastfeeding.
There is plenty of conclusive info out there if you choose to look for it.
IMO feeding a baby should not be influenced by mass marketing, or any commercial pressure at all.

Re Africa and Bangladesh, you have to bear in mind that in alot of places women are malnourished and dangerously ill. their breastmilk may not be of the same high quality as the pampered west.

Like the contraceptive pill, baby formula empowered women in the 60's and 70's. By putting formula on prescription you are taking that away again.

The OP was not about discouraging formula feeding, it was about encouraging breast feeding. The two are not the same thing.

I don't think that anyone is disputing that breast is best, providing you live in a well-fed country.

I propose that it is only marginally best, and that if you're genetically sound, it ain't gonna make much difference either way.

With regards to the Nestle dispute, if an African woman is starving ... how can her breast milk be best?

Agree Panacotta, let's mount a war against Formula advertising, there are only about 3 types anyway!

Are you telling me that a woman sees an advert for baby formula and thinks "oh yeah, that looks a good idea"?

Maybe for those women we should just put up ads telling them to walk off a cliff as they are obviously so easily influenced.

The adverts are mundane - I wish they had more info on them!

Concentrate on encouragement FGS!

Desiderata - Breast is still best in developing countries, it's not like they have great sterilising facilities and clean water is it so many babies die of gastro illnesses there because of FF.

Formula advertising really should be banned -it is unethical.
Desiderata check out the Baby milk action website I referred to for plenty of info about the issues surrounding formula made with unsafe water. The stats are not disputed, other than by Nestle (and perhaps you).

Panacotta: there is plenty of conclusive evidence out there that states the opposite, too. It's just that the evangelists are out to play, so they get more play-time at the moment.

When you're a sixty year old grandmother, you won't even remember.

But I would remind you again:

You're African. There's been a drought. You're starving. You've just given birth but you have no nutrients to pass on to your child. You're a a bag of bones. You have AIDS. You have no milk worthy of the name.

Does this where NESTLE comes in?

It fucking would if it was my kid.

Dassie encouraging women to breastfeed is also about not undermining them with formula/follow on adverts.
Formula advertising in banned in Sweden (as are junk food adverts) and their breastfeeding rate puts the UK to shame.

Dassie, Well I didn't think that advertising was an issue until someone (Tiktok perhaps) said that £20 per baby is spent by Formula companies and only £2-3 by breastfeeding promotion. This shocked me and I do feel that there is more of a subconcious influence than we imagine and help to normalise ff.

Where is the evidence to support the health benefits of formula? On the Nestle website perhaps??

Desidorata, am vaguely remembering you in this kind of discussion before and you ebing told just why especially in 3. world countries it's even MORE important to bf....it's actually the western/develloped word that gets away with Formula feeding, if anyhting....remember you need clean and sterile water and equipement, you also need the right amount of formula powder for the right concentration, which just basically comes down to money...and that is where the develloping world has it's problems and that is why so many children dye from getting ff'ed....nothing to do with the actual quality of the formula powder...
even a HIV infected mum would be, in bad conditions better to bf then to ff...

I would also point out, Pannacotta, that Sweden has the highest suicide rate in the world.

Evangelism carries a high price.

ahem, the status of the mohters nourishments doesn't actually make any difference to the quality /quantity of the milk, they feed regularly and the child gets what it's needs, cunning nature rreally...putting the childs wellbeing before the womans...

We are debating breastfeeding not suicude rates. This comment is irrelvant to the discussion. Evangelism has nothing to do with it.

was working wiht a girl from zimbabwe,not form the rich side, and I have come to one major conclusion, their disposition in nature is the happy sunny one, yes they go through shit, but there is no such thing as depression etc...because people live as a close community...there is no such thing as stress...and her claim not mine, tehre is no such thing as cotdeath..reason being, you all sleep in the same room.....yes, the west is rich materialistically, but are eople happy...not really!
I know a bit of a random so and so...anywya, she does also say that indeed the elder will always advice BF and the real problems started with Formula availability

Desiderata, so you are claiming that tehre is real research that shows that FF is beneficial nutrionaly and devellopemental to a Baby....I am not talking about possible benefits to the mother, as in not having to do nightfeeds, etc....now...

Malfoy .. the only women in Africa who receive formula food do so under supervised, controlled water provisions.

It saves their lives, and the lives of their children. Are you so middle-class that you can't understand that simple truth?

sorry, to burst your bubble, but that is NOT TRUE
formula is available, just very expensive....