I dislike Breastfeeding Awareness Week (BFAW) for several reasons, believe it or not.  One of the reasons is the sudden emergence of millions of newspaper articles like this one in the Mail on Sunday.  The authors bemoan the way that the DoH and breastfeeding organisations ‘force’ women to breastfeed but the truth is that these mothers’ sad stories have nothing to do with the relentless pushing of breastfeeding by the DoH and everything to do with the appalling level of support from the NHS.  The NCT, LLL and Unicef are trying to improve that support by trying to provide education for NHS Health Professionals (training that is, appallingly, not officially a part of midwifery or health visitor training!) and by providing highly trained Breastfeeding Counsellors and Supporters who volunteer their time to help women let down by their care-givers.  These articles just attack the only people available for skilled breastfeeding support when they ought to be attacking the government for pushing the ‘breast is best’ message (a slogan that is disliked and never used by most BFCs) without providing the necessary support for it.

The other reason I don’t like BFAW is, as you may have gathered from the above, is because I totally disagree with breastfeeding promotion.  What we should be working towards is protecting breastfeeding, not promoting it.  Protection of breastfeeding will help more women succeed in their choice to breastfeed, which will result in mothers feeling more empowered and believing in their ability to nurture their own babies themselves.  More women succeeding at breastfeeding means more breastfeeding being visible which will hopefully lead to a cultural change of seeing breastfeeding as more the norm.  Stopping promoting breastfeeding so heavily will also help the allay some of the negative feelings of guilt many mothers have when they stop breastfeeding (which is usually because of not having enough support, not out of choice - statistics suggest that a whopping 90% of mothers who give up breastfeeding do so sooner than they would have wanted!  In my (limited, I admit!) experience, women who give up because they actually *want* to, not because they feel they have no choice, do not feel guilty about their decision).  Protection of breastfeeding, in my opinion, involves everything the Breastfeeding Manifesto endorses.  If you agree with me, please pledge your support by signing up yourself and by contacting your MP to ask them to do the same.

While I’m at it, I’d just like to say that I am truly shocked by the above article author’s description of her NCT Breastfeeding Workshop.  No BFC I know would have even asked whether or not the parents were bfed, let alone asked such direct and offensive questions of a bottle-fed person…I wonder where that comment has come from?  I’m sure she’s not lying, but I am well aware that sometimes strong feelings about a subject can warp one’s understanding of what someone’s saying - I hope that’s the right explanation!