New funding to improve UK's breastfeeding rate

An extra £2 million will be invested to help more women in England breastfeed, Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo announced. The extra funding, announced during World Breastfeeding Week (1-7 August), will help improve the UK's breastfeeding rate that is among the lowest in Europe, and in particular help mums in deprived areas.

The extra funding will help support hospitals in disadvantaged areas to achieve Unicef Baby-Friendly Status, a set of best practice standards for maternity units and community services on improving practice to promote, protect and support breastfeeding. This Unicef initiative has a proven track record in raising breastfeeding rates in many countries. It will not only support mothers to start breastfeeding, but will help them to continue for longer through a range other grassroots initiatives, such as peer support groups to help mothers overcome breastfeeding difficulties. The Government will monitor progress through measuring the prevalence of breastfeeding at 6 to 8 weeks in all Primary Care Trusts as a key indicator of Child Health & Wellbeing PSA target.

Dawn Primarolo said, "By international standards not enough women breastfeed in England. This money will help more mums - particularly those in more deprived areas - to breastfeed and to do so for longer.

"We want to ensure women know the importance of breastfeeding and the benefits to themselves and their baby. "

Recent research has showed significant inequalities in breastfeeding with only 32% of women in the routine and manual socio-economic group breastfeeding beyond six weeks, compared with 65% in managerial and professional groups.1

This extra investment in England will help improve our breastfeeding rates, which are one of the lowest in Europe. In England 78% of mothers initiate breastfeeding. Of this, only 22% are still breastfeeding at 6 months. Initiation rates for other European countries: Norway: 99%; Denmark: 98%; Sweden: 97.7%; Switzerland: 94%; Austria: 93%; Italy: 91%; Spain: 84.2%, while France, Ireland and Germany have lower rates than England Germany: 77.8%; France: 69%; Ireland: 53%.

The extra funding and services at community level are in addition to other activities initiated in 2008 to promote breastfeeding, including the launch of the new National Breastfeeding Helpline (0844 2090 920) and the launch of Breast Buddy - a campaign to encourage women, especially those who are 16-25 years and from disadvantaged groups, to initiate and continue to breastfeed. Breastmilk gives babies all the nutrients they need for the first six months of life and helps protect them from infection and diseases such as gastro-intestinal infections, ear infections, urine infections, eczema and obesity in later childhood.

The Baby Friendly initiative tells mothers about the benefits of breastfeeding, trains staff to help women breastfeed, helps mums and babies to stay together 24 hours a day while they are in hospital and sets standards for breastfeeding support groups.

A £75 million social marketing campaign called Change4Life is due to be launched in Autumn 2008, which will focus on helping people to make healthier choices, and breastfeeding will be integral to the campaign.