Proposed maternity leave cut would impact breastfeeding rates - discuss

[hunkermunker]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7971473.stm

Yes, of course fathers are important and it would be good if they could have more time off - but is decreasing statutory maternity leave the way forward?

Realistically, would many dads stay off work for longer at £117 a week, whilst their wives/partners went back to work?

Or is this a way to get women back to work sooner?

And if paid maternity leave goes back to six months for women, what impact will that have on breastfeeding? Realistically, this means many women going back to work before their baby's ready for solid food, it can therefore mean more hassle with expressing, getting the baby used to a bottle or cup, etc.

I don't know, out of the many women I know who have given up breastfeeding before 6 months, returning to work has not been the cause for any of them.

I think it would be daft to cut SML, though -- much fairer to say parents get 9 months (or more!) to split between them as they see fit.

Well, my DS still fed ALL the time at 6 months, couldn't express as breast were small and didn't fit into expresser(!) and too soft. I would have had to put him onto formula!

Can't they just pay fathers full pay (or 90%) for 2 weeks instead? I know so many fathers that only take 1 week as they can't afford 2 weeks, 2 only had 4 days! and

Also, the main breadwinner thing annoys the crap out of me. Some women are main breadwinners and can't survive on £117 a week, so only have 6 weeks off.

I don't feel like mothers in this country are made to feel welcome. We are either lazy (SAHM) or selfish (WOHM) The maternity pay reflects this. IMO

Sorry, link here: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7971473.stm

Meg, interesting - I wonder though, whether it would cause more women to think it wasn't worth trying to establish bf - I've heard more than one say that they didn't want to go through "all that hassle" to get it established, then go back to work almost as soon as it was.

I think that the speed with which mothers are required to return to work does have an impact on breastfeeding, and I write with the perspective of someone who lives in France where maternity leave lasts for 10 weeks after the birth (for the first two children). I have heard many, many women say that they didn't or barely breastfed because their priorities were getting (a) their own bodies strong enough to return to work (b) their babies into the bottlefeed-sleep routine required by crèches and childminders.

Don't know whether you saw this earlier thread here on this issue - a lot of posters seemed to agree that it would work against breastfeeding.

There are always those who say that it's perfectly possible to bf and work f/t, I suppose. I couldn't have managed it though (could never express more than about three drops at a time).

I think the govt should work towards valuing the role of in-the-home parents, rather than setting up all these desperate machinations to get everybody's nose back to the grindstone as soon as the lochea has subsided.

Stretch, I agree re women being much maligned. If you're a SAHM, you're either a rich bitch yummy mummy, a lentil-weaving hippie or benefit-scrounging and workshy. If you're a WOHM, you're a ball-busting career woman (read unnatural, bloke) or you don't love your children (why bother to have them, etc, etc).

But that's all so much media rubbish (often perpetuated by idiots) - most women are just living their lives, trying to do the best by their families within the parameters of their circumstances. That doesn't make good copy though, unfortunately. And the few that ARE like I describe above aren't the norm by a long way, but because they fit the stereotype shorthand, they in some way "prove" that all other women are the same.

I think it has the potential to undermine breastfeeding, since most women commence maternity leave weeks prior to their EDD. Therefore, 6 months leave would mean them going back to work - in some cases where leave has (had to?)started 11 weeks before EDD - when the baby was 15 weeks old. Most mothers like to establish weaning themselves before they go back to work, dont they?

There is also the issue of babies born prematurely. To cut leave to 6 months is harsh.

It shouldnt be an either/or situation IMO. Give fathers more leave, but not at the expense of mothers, or undermining breastfeeding and weaning guidelines.

ds bfed every two hours round the clock for 7m. i took extra unpaid leave at the end of my m/l, took out a loan to cover it.

dh is self employed and took one day a week off for the first six months to spend with ds, although i was there too!

we couldn't really afford any of this but i can't think of anything much more important to spend time and money on.

a male colleague is taking unpaid leave so that his wife can return to work early (their baby is formula fed)

Oh, thank you, Wonk - hadn't seen that thread (had a brief peruse in case I could see something obviously about this, but rather like starting my own anyway ).

Just because it's possible for some women to express and work, it doesn't make it easy for women to return to work. I've done it myself twice, but I was fortunate enough to be able to express very easily (at the start anyway, towards the end of DS1 having ebm whilst I was at work, it got really rather difficult) - and I would never suggest it's something that the Government ought to hold up as the ideal way to encourage women to bf.

Agree re valuing and encouraging SAHM-dom more. It strikes me that we spend a long time pondering why society's going to pot once children reach their teens, but we don't spend much time nurturing their home environments or making it possible for parents to spend unstressful time with their children in their formative years. Mental.

I do think there ought to be more sensible guidelines for small businesses, etc with what they are obliged to do for their employees wrt statutory sick and maternity pay.

We're not currently a society that values women or children - that's wrong, no?

It's so difficult. OTOH, no self-respecting feminist (except Monkeytrousers ) wants to submit to biological determinism; but OTOH, breastfeeding seems (to me) to be a pretty strong argument for mothers spending a lot of unhurried time with their children over the first year. It's difficult to express that without sounding like a crazy person who doesn't think that mothers should do paid work.

I guess, in an ideal world, work would be organised so that it was possible for parents to take extended career breaks if they want them, with anti-discrimination measures in place to make sure that they didn't suffer from doing so. Hell, not even just parents - most people would like a lengthy sabbatical now and then.

LOL policywonk why on earth can one not be a self-respecting feminist and also a biological determinist? I fall very definitely into that camp!

Why is it so difficult to admit that there is an irreconcilable conflict of interest between two things that are in every mother's own good:

• caring for her baby herself and, in particular, breastfeeding

• earning her own independent living

It's typical for women in Belgium to go back to work four or five days a week when their baby is 15 weeks old. Many women I know have done this, and most of them stop bfing at around 2/3 months so that the baby is formula fed when they return to work. Even if they continue bfing once they start work, they stop fairly quickly because it is hard work to bf, express milk and work full time.

So yes, I would say decreasing maternity leave will decrease the length of time women bf.

well, I went back to work after 6 mo with DS1 and kept bfing until he was nearly 2. But agree SMP should be kept at 9 mo, but let fathers take leave too.

"It strikes me that we spend a long time pondering why society's going to pot once children reach their teens, but we don't spend much time nurturing their home environments or making it possible for parents to spend unstressful time with their children in their formative years. Mental."

Completely agree with this.

I suspect there are many SAHM that wish to get back into the workplace but childcare and money issues prevent that, and many WOHM that wish to have more time with their children but are unable to afford it. Surely there's some way of ensuring a balance?

I feel very strongly that cutting maternity leave would have a strong negative impact on breastfeeding rates/length of breastfeeding.
There are loads of threads on here by mothers worrying about how to cope when they go back to work and their babies need to go to nursery.
Also I have links to Sweden and the mat leave there is 12 months, as well as generous paternity leave, and their breastfeeding rates are much, much higher than ours, both in terms of starting breastfeeding and continusing till beyond 6 months, in fact it is quite common to breastfeed until 12 months plus over there.

It would be very sad IMO if this proposed cut went ahead...

Wny not have something called bf leave independent of maternity leave?? So there was effectively a financial incentive to bf?

That's interesting about the irreconcilable conflict, Anna. I guess I don't like irreconcilable conflicts - I tend to want to reconcile 'em (very male attitude).

In your view, do we just have to accept that for the first year/whatever of a baby's life, it's mother will be failing either the baby or herself? Or herself and the baby, whichever way she approaches it?

BoffinMum - I completely agree that there should be a "breastfeeding" element to maternity leave (I believe very strongly that we need to rename maternity leave and talk clearly about post-partum recovery and breastfeeding, which is what "maternity" leave ought to be about) but how do we do this without stigmatising those mothers who are unable to breastfeed, for whatever reason?

Wonk, how is it failing yourself to nurture your child? Or do I not quite understand?

BoffinMum, how would you prove you were bfing?

policywonk - I don't think that there is a perfect one size fits all solution, which is why I like the phrase "irreconcilable conflict of interest" and use it frequently.

I find it so much more helpful, personally, to recognise this than to try to make a decision on what "side" to be on! Surely recognising conflicts of interest and managing your own dilemmas (recognising what you gain and what you lose) makes life easier, not harder, in the long run?

I don't think it would impact on early stage breastfeeding rates - I think people usually give up at that stage for reasons more to do with pain, real or perceived lack of milk, lack of support etc etc. I doubt that maternity leave would impact greatly on the decision to give up early.

But for sure it would impact on the number of people who reach 6 months on breast alone - as others have said, you normally stop work at 36-38 weeks, then many women deliver late, so realistically 6 months mat leave means going back to work when the baby is 4-5 months old. Expressing for a baby for is on BF alone is a full-time job and may be impossible if you are one of those women who doesn't find expressing easy, or if you have an unsympathetic employer (and yes I know they have a statutory duty but providing a nasty dusty cupboard and calling it an "expressing facility" is very different to actually supporting your employee to do this). This will dramatically increase early weaning or introduction of formula IMO.

However I do think that there should be much more paternity leave available to fathers and much more pressure on them to take it. In Sweden there is a componant of parental leave which is only accessible to the father. This is the only way to combat prejudice against women of child-bearing age in the workplace. And there should be much more flexibility over existing maternity leave to allow some of it to be accessed by fathers if that suits the family best.

Personally I would like to see the existing 9 months mat pay extended to 12 months, 3 months of which is only accessible to the father. There should then be a further 12 months unpaid leave which can be accessed by either partner.

This may sound like it would unfairly benefit the well-off who can afford to remain off work, but in fact I think it would be the opposite - at the moment many low-income women are forced out of the workplace because their job doesn't cover the high cost of caring for babies under 2 years. If their job was kept open for them for 2 years then many of them would return rather than dropping out altogether. It would also benefit employers as a 2 year maternity contract woudl be more attractive to prospective employees, and would not require such a high extra premium to persuade them to take it.

Hunker, I knew someone would ask that! I don't know. I am stuck on that bit.

What do people think about it being illegal for women in the UK to return to work for two weeks (four weeks if they work in a factory) but only receiving 90% of pay for that duration? Surely they should get the whole lot if it's not even their choice?