Breastfeeding advocates look for way to boost Ireland’s low rates

EMPHASISING the risks of not breastfeeding may be the key to pushing up Ireland’s low rate of around 43%, a breast-feeding advocate said yesterday.

National breastfeeding coordinator Maureen Fallon said a similar approach was taken in the United States where the breast-feeding rate now exceeds 70%.

An Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) report shows that 41.1% of mothers in Ireland were breast feeding in 2002, compared to 33.89% in 1993. Currently the rate is estimated at 43%, although some maternity hospitals are achieving rates of more than 50%.

The rate in Britain is just over 70% while Sweden is Europe’s star performer with a breastfeeding rate of 99%.

While research shows that most Irish people know that breast-feeding has many advantages for babies, this awareness is not resulting in a massive move away from Ireland’s bottle-fed culture.

The ESRI study also shows that breast-feeding in Ireland is more popular among better-educated people.

“If there was a product on the market offering even one-hundredth of the advantages of breastfeeding, we would be scrambling to buy it,” Ms Fallon said.

She said the negative approach had worked in the US and employers there actively encouraged women to breast feed their babies simply because it saved them money.

“American employers know that women employees who breast feed their children are less likely to be absent from work because their child is sick,” she said.

In Ireland, breastfeeding women have a legal right to take ‘lactation breaks’ until their child is six months old. But, said Ms Fallon, the permitted period is not long enough and she is hoping the law will be amended in the future to accommodate working women wanting to breastfeed for longer.

Ms Fallon said new food safety warnings in relation to infant formula foods should also boost breastfeeding rates.

Because of the risk of contamination, it is no longer considered safe to make up formula feeds in advance and store them in the fridge. Even making up formula feeds at the time required did not completely remove the risk of contamination resulting from the manufacturing process, Ms Fallon said.

“We have to find the key to getting Irish parents to see breastfeeding as a normal part of having a baby. I don’t know it yet but will keep on trying to find it,” she said.