The breastfeeding bullies don’t help new mums one jot
I HAVE been a breastfeeding consultant to new mothers for many years, and so I know the last thing we need are breastfeeding lessons for 11-year-olds (Mail). The reason why Britain has the worst breastfeeding rate in the world is down to the lack of practical help from health professionals. The art of breastfeeding was lost in the Fifties when formula milk was promoted by the medical profession. Today’s guidelines from the Government’s health watchdog NICE insist mothers go home breastfeeding even when most leave hospital on the same day they give birth and midwives have little time to help. The breastfeeding bullies demonise formula to the point where a new mother who is having problems is so afraid to use a bottle that she ends up with a dehydrated baby who has to be admitted to hospital, leaving Mum feeling a complete failure. The zealots also insist that breastfeeding is OK anywhere and anytime. What happened to discretion when feeding your baby? All the new mothers I have helped like to breastfeed in privacy, and their modesty is easily preserved by a large scarf. From four weeks, the baby can have expressed milk in a bottle if the circumstances are not right to breastfeed. Most mothers have at least six months of maternity leave, and after that they can still breastfeed first thing in the morning and at bedtime. The baby will be having solids by the time the mother goes back to work, so there is no need for the breastfeeding breaks called for by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. We need to stop terrifying mothers that only breast will do. Unless there is a change in the way breastfeeding is approached by all the professional bodies, the situation will not improve.