Anthea Tennant-Eyles, Research Lead and Breastfeeding Peer Supporter
New research published here by Cardiff University and The Breastfeeding Network highlights inequity of access to breastfeeding support for families across England and Wales, a pattern of decreased funding since 2015 across England and loss of funded peer support training across Wales. One peer supporter describes changes to local support as ‘a skeleton with all the flesh removed’.
Click here to read the full report.
This research looks at data from local authorities, CCGs, health boards, infant feeding leads, peer supporters and service-users on breastfeeding support services. The need to value breastfeeding support (including peer support) at all levels has been a key finding.
World Breastfeeding Week 2021 has a fitting theme ‘Protect Breastfeeding: a shared responsibility’.
Good practice of this has been reported. One Infant Feeding Lead describes a maintained level of funding, with BFI accreditation, a staff team to support the infant lead role and a peer support service that is ‘fully integrated and offers comprehensive very high level support across all areas of maternity and health visiting services.’
High-level investments are needed across England and Wales to ensure that there is equity of access to breastfeeding support.
One peer supporter noted, “it was different in every local authority or health board … it was a post code lottery … until after you had your baby, you didn’t really realise how much that mattered in terms of what support you would get”.
So why is academic research on breastfeeding so important?
To inform policy makers on the importance of providing dedicated breastfeeding support services to local families and that services are protected for the well-being of future generations.
This time last year, we published a joint statement with a number of other organisations, expressing our concern at the fragility of infant feeding support in the UK, exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, not a lot of progress has been made towards remedying this situation in the past year, and this new report only serves to highlight the continuing need for change. We stand by our statement and are still calling on the UK government to work towards reducing health inequalities and improving provision of adequate breastfeeding support for all. You can read our original statement here:
https://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/2020statement/
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