Support for breastfeeding mums lacking
MUMS who choose to breastfeed their newborn babies are not getting enough support from the NHS, a Cardiff University study has revealed.
Researchers obtained data from almost every NHS organisation in the UK that provides maternity services and found that peer support was only available in 56% of trust or health board areas.
They also found variation in what was provided in different parts of the country, and this was often related to financial constraints within organisations.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommends the provision of a peer support service as part of the strategy to increase breastfeeding rates in the UK.
But the UK has one of the lowest rates of breastfeeding in the whole of Europe, latest figures show.
Dr Aimee Grant, from Cardiff University’s Centre for Trials Research, said: “Contrary to national guidance, which states that peer support should be available in the UK to aid the initiation and continuation of breastfeeding, we found that coverage both across the country and within regions was variable.
“In addition, around one-third of the health professionals we surveyed felt that breastfeeding peer support services were not well integrated with other NHS health services which supported new mothers.”
Peer support can be offered by local breastfeeding groups, midwives, health visitors or by volunteers.
Professor Shantini Paranjothy, from Cardiff University’s School of Medicine, who leads a larger programme of work in this area, added: “The World Health Organisation recommends that infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life.
“But only 1% of women in the UK are able to meet this standard and over three-quarters of women stop breastfeeding before they would have liked to.
“Peer support has been shown to help women breastfeed for longer in some countries. Our survey showed there is wide variation in what is available to women in the UK.
“More research is needed to find the most effective ways to provide peer support to help mothers who wish to breastfeed in the UK.”
The new research, “Availability of breastfeeding peer-support in the UK: a cross-sectional survey”, was published in the journal Maternal and Child Nutrition.
The data was not broken down by different areas of the UK.