New US study suggests $13 billion and 900 lives saved if babies were breastfed to at least six months.

[RubyBuckleberry]

I am not sure how to start off this discussion for fear of a catfight . I am prepared for flaming so bring it on, but FWIW, I am genuinely interested in how on earth to raise breastfeeding rates so try to take that into account. Feel free to hide the thread too!

Should it really be 'my body, my choice', or do we have a moral obligation to breastfeed? Given that personal lactation consultants are not an option, how is the situation ever going to change?

$13 billion is alot. 900 lives is loads of families and babies who suffer . It is an estimate so I would be interested in how many people simply don't believe it. I have it on good authority that this country spends £100 billion a year on the NHS so would a few billion over here even make a difference? It was published in the journal 'Pediatrics'. You probably have to pay to see the actual study but it is all over the internet on many different websites:

here

the daily mail has it too for all those DM readers

and here

Low breastfeeding rates aren't just down to the choices of individuals, but are due to the breastfeeding-unfriendly nature of our society, so I don't think it is right to lay the moral obligation on individual women. And I think it is very important that women have control over what happens to their bodies, so yes I do think it is 'my body, my choice'.

What is necessary is for the government to properly support breastfeeding so that women who actually do want to breastfeed, can. We need properly trained midwives, HVs and doctors. We need Baby Friendly hospitals. We need laws protecting breastfeeding in public places, and laws protecting the rights of working mothers to express and/or feed their babies at work. We need a ban on the marketing of breastmilk substitutes as per the WHO code.

Should women be obligated to breastfeed?
Interesting question.
I say NO, just as women shouldn't be obligated to carry on with pregnancies they do not want.
Women need to be free to choose what they do.

In a natural world their choice not to breastfeed would obviously lead to the death of their baby, so they would FEEL obligated.

If you publicize the facts of how inadequate formula is by comparason, then perhaps most women would feel obligated to breastfeed, unless they had major issues in the way.

So I say go with getting all the information out there so women can make a right choice.
You would think breastfeeding would usually be the right choice, but doing so could distress some women.
MAybe there should be more counselling for women who've adopted the warped mentallity against breastfeeding.

We need warnings AND support

"We need properly trained midwives, HVs and doctors. We need Baby Friendly hospitals. We need laws protecting breastfeeding in public places, and laws protecting the rights of working mothers to express and/or feed their babies at work. We need a ban on the marketing of breastmilk substitutes as per the WHO code."

That all sounds about right ItNeverRainsBut - so who are the people that train midwives, HVs and doctors? They're in trusts aren't they? How does it work - who is responsible? Who has the authority to ban marketing of breastmilk substitutes?

The vast majority of new mums in US and UK attempt to breastfeed their newborns but the fall out rate by 6 weeks is staggering. We need to address these issues - a lot of MWs/HVs/GPs have had inadequate training (and a scary amount have no training) in BF.

We need to stop blaming new mothers for this (along with the guilt) and start blaming the system.

Breastfeeding is natural but it is not instinctive and is a learned art. Unfortunately the NHS thinks slinging up a couple of "Breast is Best" posters is enough. It isn't.

So does anyone think it would be wise to advertise breastfeeding? Who would even create the campaign if there was one?

And who trains health professionals. I just don't get why its not being done on a bigger scale with all this talk of $13 billion .

absolutely, the government/NHS should pay for it to be organized.
I like the australian campaigns. they're brilliant, we need them
see here

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnReJeQrK0k

lots of women start breastfeeding but at 6 weeks only a small percentage of babies are being breastfed at all

i am an anomaly amongst my friends for breastfeeding past 6 weeks

i read The Politics of Breastfeeding whilst i was pregnant and it did change my views in many ways

however, i feel breastfeeding is subtly undermined at many points and we need a huge cultural shift if things are to change

breastfeeding takes guts and commitment - i had a lot of help plus a supportive DH

also, i agree re training

the MW i saw when DD was 10 days old told me, " we aren't meant to advise top ups but you should try it if your DD is feeding so frequently"

also, just this week i was told the reason DD still woke in the night for a feed was because the "first 10 minutes of a breastfeed are a drink only" (DD feeds in 6 or 7 mins maximum)

The NHS did this advert in scotland (why not here??)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ_cHpunck0

wow - those australian adverts are brilliant!

this is interesting to

o

That Australian advert actually made me cry - WHY can't we have those over here??

RubyBuckleberry, have you asked your MP to sign up to the Breastfeeding Manifesto?

that scottish ad is lovely! wish it'd be shown down here too.

From my (very limited) experience, there is a lot of support available to those who want it. In my area there is a LLL advertised in every chemists window, there's a bf support clinic run by the HV team which all new mums are told about at midwife appointments and by HV after baby is born. We have one HV who is an NCT bf counsellor plus another NCT bf counsellor in the town.

And yet.

Of the other mums I have met since DS was born, there are a faction who only bf for the first couple of weeks before turning in desperation to formula. Just taking into account the fellow NCT ones (so we are all, I would say, quite middle class and generally educated to degree level), who I meet fairly regularly, I would say 50% were 'unable' to bfeed. Yet talking to them further, they have one of the following reasons:

1. husband doesn't like breast feeding
2. baby fed more than 8-10 times in 24 hours to start with
3. mother/mother in law bottle fed them and so pressured them into 'just one bottle' to give them a break.
4. mastitis/thrush/post birth infection which left them totally wiped out and ill.
5. nipple pain from bad latch.

Of those reasons, 2 will take more than just educatind midwives to overcome. 1 (point 4) I think just takes sheer bloody mindedness and luck to overcome. 2 would have been helped a lot by going to clinics/calling LLL for help.

TBH, the ones who had problems in the early days and are still bfing at 4/5/6/7 months ALL asked for help in the right places - it didn't come and find them. the ones who had problems and are not still bfing always say 'but there's no help available!' (this is just talking about women I know, in an area with great bfing support - it is very different elsewhere I know!).

I was lucky and apart from having a baby who DOES NOT SLEEP (it's arolf btw - DS is 7 months on monday and we're still lucky to get 4 hrs in a row - grr!), have had relatively easy bfing journey until recently.

not sure what I'm saying here except that sometimes you can have all the help/education/training in the world and women will ignore it. and also, it's not just the women who need to be educated - there are family and friends undermining at every step too (my family are all wondering why I am still bfing DS, and express horror when I say I'm going to let him self wean...)

"That all sounds about right ItNeverRainsBut - so who are the people that train midwives, HVs and doctors? They're in trusts aren't they? How does it work - who is responsible? Who has the authority to ban marketing of breastmilk substitutes?"

I'm not totally sure, but -

I think the government could ban marketing if it really wanted to - but formula and other baby food manufacturers have big budgets and lobby against this.

As for training - Primary Care Trusts and hospitals can go for Baby Friendly accreditation www.babyfriendly.org.uk/ but I don't know who makes those decisions.

As individual mothers it is hard to know what to do. National organisations such as LLL or BfN campaign for this stuff so supporting them is a good thing to do. Likewise Baby Milk Action. Writing letters to MPs.

Interesting post kveta. I do get what you're saying.

i wonder what the view is in countries with much higher breastfeeding rates than ours? e.g. Sweden, Norway, Denmark. Or even Australia and NZ, which are not as high as the Scandinavian countries but still substantially higher than the UK. i don't think women in those countries are fundamentally different to British women, but the culture is more supportive of breastfeeding.

I think just breastfeeding and being seen to breastfeed - not in an ostentatious way, but just going about your business - is actually quite powerful in terms of normalising breastfeeding.

'From my (very limited) experience, there is a lot of support available to those who want it.'

Not my experience at all, sadly.

Particularly in a rural area.

yes, I should have said 'there is a lot of support in my area'! am aware it's very different elsewhere.

If we're talking about the US, I'm convinced that the critical issue is birth. Birth is massively medically managed in the US and caesarean rates are sky high. Almost everyone has an epidural and fentanyl, widely used in epidurals is shown to have serious knock-on effects on breastfeeding.

Additionally, if babies fail to latch on in the first two hours following birth, this makes it more difficult to establish the breastfeeding relationship. With the US set up of medical birth/caesarean, eyedrops, Vit. K shots, weighing and general faffing on, the amount of babies that get any kind of skin to skin in the first two hours is shockingly small.

The US is recovering from a crazy few decades where doctors were god and 'science' (i.e. formula milk) was considered far superior to 'nature'. In fact, I don't think it has recovered. If anything, the C Section rate is getting worse.

Also, Kveta... the reason I hear very often is along the lines of 'my milk never came in' or 'I didn't have enough milk'

There are a lot of reasons behind this.

• A huge proportion of women don't understand what colostrum is or how it works. Many of them don't realise they have to keep putting the baby to the breast to keep supply up or don't follow the baby's cues to feed.
• Someone worries them by pointing at charts which aren't really relevant or helpful for breastfed babies
• Their latch needs correcting
• Medication used during the birth process slows or inhibits the lactogenesis (milk coming in)
• Concerns about small breasts, surgery etc. etc.

Very rarely it happens, but 9 times out of ten, it's a symptom of some other problem. If proper breastfeeding support was available, many of these could be sorted out.