There are a multitude of challenges to navigate as a new mum, but many women are being left to learn about the reality of breastfeeding the hard way, a charity claims.
Some are left in toe-curling pain as they struggle to get their babies to latch, but fear they have nowhere to turn for fear of being judged. Women have reported feeling a sense of deep isolation and failure, let down by their own bodies.
Almost three-quarters of women start breastfeeding when their baby is born, but this drops to 44 per cent by the time the baby reaches six to eight weeks, a Public Health England study found in 2017. While Unicef says eight out of 10 women stop breastfeeding before they want to.
Breastfeeding came as a shock for mum-of-two Catherine Hines, who is now the CEO of the Breastfeeding Network (BfN). She’d had discussions about labour and read up about her maternity leave policies, but nothing had quite prepared her for feeding her baby and the stigma she felt.
After experiencing difficulty getting established, the 48-year-old, whose children are now seven and 10, then had to face disgust among her family members who would ask her to leave the room to breastfeed. “It was quite striking that infant feeding was just not something that I had been exposed to or discussed with people and it came as a shock. And I think that’s it for very many women,” Catherine, from Nottinghamshire, told the Mirror.
“I say women, I think it comes as a shock to families, because it actually has an impact on the wider family and often elicits quite strong reactions from a whole range of people involved.” She says the charity’s focus is to support women and their families in their choices around infant feeding, ensuring they can access evidence-based information that they can trust.
She stresses the importance of the nuance around the age-old sentiment that ‘breast is best’, which is so often drilled into women. In the UK, the NHS recommends exclusive breastfeeding for six months, then breastfeeding alongside food into the child’s second year.
Catherine cites evidence that shows the health benefits of breast milk – with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines stating that ‘Breastfeeding protects against diarrhoea and common childhood illnesses such as pneumonia and may also have longer-term health benefits for the mother and child, such as reducing the risk of overweight and obesity in childhood and adolescence’.
Yet she is clear that parents who formula-feed are not harming their children and argues that ‘there is no place’ for judgement if some mums aren’t able to, or choose to give their baby formula instead. “Yes, there would be some population-level benefits and yes, that would have an impact on the health service,” Catherine, who was fed formula as a baby, began.
“But there is no value at all in guilt-tripping parents, no one needs that. Our commitment is to support women and families, to make informed choices and to access high-quality support that they can rely on and trust to meet whatever goals they have set themselves.
“We know that eight out of 10 women in the UK set out with the intention of breastfeeding. What gets in the way is often societal factors and misinformation, which needs to be dealt with and what is damaging is the marketing of a multi-billion dollar industry with formula”.
She is referring to the 2023 report by the medical journal Lancet that found the “commercial milk formula industry has used underhand marketing strategies, designed to prey on parents’ fears and concerns, to turn the feeding of infants and young children into a multibillion-dollar business – generating revenues of about $55 billion each year.”
“Women and families make decisions about infant feeding based on the information they receive, and a criticism of the commercial milk formula (CMF) industry’s predatory marketing practices should not be interpreted as a criticism of women,” the report states. “All information that families receive on infant feeding must be accurate and independent of industry influence to ensure informed decision making.”
For some who wish to breastfeed but encounter common problems in their journey, it’s clear how transformative help and support can be. Thankfully, the charity is on hand to provide accurate and free information, even operating a 24-hour hotline for those moments of desperation during a nighttime feed when everyone else is asleep.
It’s run by trained volunteers who predominantly want to give back after finding themselves in agonising pain and anguish during their breastfeeding journeys, but who found salvation through the charity. In the past month, the most common problems they have heard about have been around expressing, position and attachment, getting established, blocked ducts and mastitis – when the breast becomes swollen, hot and painful – and crying/colic – when a healthy baby cries for a very long time for no particular reason.
They also run a hugely popular ‘Drugs in Breast Milk’ information service, which sees clinical pharmacists advise mums and health professionals on whether they can or can’t breastfeed whilst taking certain medicines, such as antibiotics. Catherine argues that healthcare professionals need more training on breastfeeding as part of their medical training to help better understand issues like this.
“I think because people will be a little bit scared about giving wrong information, quite often the default will be to tell them to stop,” she explained. “Which might not have to be the case. It sounds niche but it is a vital service.”
Touching on how crucial their service can be for new mums, Catherine says it’s bitter-sweet. “It’s extremely motivating to know that we’re making such a difference but also upsetting at once,” she said. “It is such an emotional time when you’ve been in that situation and it’s quite hard not to be quite angry.”
While the government supports the National Breastfeeding Helpline, run in collaboration with BfN and the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers (ABM), along with their charity work, Catherine wants the new Labour government to further invest in information resources for parents and families, including investment in trained peer support to work alongside healthcare professionals. The mum-of-two has also called upon the government to give attention to reliable human donor milk banks for those who want or need access to breast milk but cannot breastfeed.
“The network is essentially run on a bit of a wing and a prayer at the moment, but it’s a terrific resource to build upon because that’s something that people are willing to give in very large quantities,” the expert explained. “And especially if people have lost a child, then quite often they get their milk and it feels like they are doing something really positive in the memory of that child. That can be a really transformative process for everyone involved.”
The CEO also wants Labour to recognise food security of our youngest citizens and their families ‘cannot be safeguarded through corporate interest’, and therefore insists there is a need to regulate the existing infant formula market, including intervening on formula prices. Unicef estimates that as infant formula prices have risen above inflation over the past two years, the cost of feeding a 10-week-old baby on first-stage infant formula costs between £44 to £89 per month.
Catherine has also suggested the potential to make and supply a not-for-profit, plain-labelled infant formula, using UK-produced ingredients and supplied with strictly factual infant feeding information that families can trust. “Labour has committed to ‘govern for every single person in this country.’ This must include babies, children and the families who are feeding them,” she said.
In light of World Breastfeeding Week (Aug 1-7), she added: “The theme is about closing gaps. With a Labour government coming in with an agenda to close gaps and bring change, we really hope to see some kind of long-term approaches and learning from those of us who already work in this sector.
“There’s a lot of expertise, a lot of goodwill to support all families to thrive, and lots of good practice as well to learn from in terms of working with the health service and with communities. I think we genuinely do need to see a willingness to be a bit brave.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “It is unacceptable that too many women are not receiving the care they deserve or the information they need. The benefits of breastfeeding for child and maternal health are significant and well-established. We are committed to making sure there is equal access to support for families across the country.”
For more information and support, please head to the Breastfeeding Network’s website here. National Breastfeeding Helpline: 0300 100 0212.
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