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 agreed to do the article in the Times after some discussion on a MN thread.
women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5998876.ece
And yes I am bfing in the pic, much to my mother's surprise that the Times would put that in - lol!
I do not think maternity leave should be cut at all, but do think families should be allowed to flex some of the time between them if it helps. This link better shows the full proposals www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/mar/30/paternity-rights-paid-leave

I work mostly from home so dh being able to take leave would have increased my frequency of direct bfing. (We do this on the 2 days he is at home with the dc).
As it is, I try and visit nursery once a day to feed and have to express the rest of the time on the days I do work.

From my experience, breast feeding and work do not go well together and I agree that the shorter maternity leave is, the shorter the period of breast feeding is likely to be.

I cannot accurately describe the horror of expressly milk in the toilets (as quickly as I could, lest people wonder where I was), being in a meeting that went on longer than intended and looking down and noticing that the milk had soaked through the pads I had and stained my shirt, agonisingly sore boobs as it was not always possible to express at the minute I needed to and then... just pouring the milk away as there was no where I could keep it.

I was very lucky in that my office was very private so I was able to express there.
But if I had gone back to work after 6mo - I would have switched to formula (or even worse IMHO introduced solids earlier).

I do think we should be given the opportunity to swap some of our maternity leave on to our partners.
But the whole system is very skewed against higher earning women - SMP was less than a quarter of my take home salary. And though we did save up loads before I went on ML, it was still very tight the last couple of months.