Susan Hill Susan Hill

How the NHS fails new mothers on breast-feeding

So much distress could be spared if a breast-feeding counselling service could be available universally and on demand

[Getty Images/BananaStock RF]

There is really no question about whether it is best for babies to be breast-fed, at least for the first few weeks of life. Plenty of research from around the world has proved conclusively that breast-fed babies, who receive all the mother’s antibodies from the colostrum (produced during the first few days) and then the milk, have a better resistance to infections and viruses, and get them more mildly if they do succumb. They have fewer allergies, have a 20 per cent lower risk than formula-fed babies of dying between the ages of 28 days and one year, and may be protected against some diseases that strike later. Breast-feeding also creates a bond between mother and baby, helps the mother to reduce her weight back to pre-pregnancy levels, and reduces maternal stress levels and the incidence of serious post-partum depression. None of this is now a matter for debate.

So, given the massive benefits, why do some mothers in the developed world never start breast-feeding or, which is even more common, give it up in despair after a few days or weeks? It is certainly not for want of information about the benefits.

Not many issues are so affected by the issue of social class as that of breast-feeding. Of those who never start, far more mothers come from social groups C2, D and E than A, B and C1. It is a commonplace that working–class mothers rarely breast-feed. From the time when I had my first child, when I was 35, until now, I have known and known well a dozen women from C2, D and E who have not attempted breast-feeding. Their reasons were various but only one was too ill to do so. I asked the others, tactfully, why they had not considered breast-feeding, because I wondered why anyone would not.

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