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Brit Mothers Hesitate to Breastfeed in Public

by Rajashri on Jul 6 2009 8:23 PM

A new survey has said that two in three UK mothers hesitate to breastfeed their kids whether inside or outside over fears of attracting unwanted attention.

A large number of women believe UK is "not breastfeeding-friendly".

Despite decades of initiatives to persuade mothers that "breast is best", most still prefer using infant formula milk because they believe society at large is anti-breastfeeding.

"Every mum we questioned understood the health benefits of breastfeeding, but a huge percentage were put off even trying because of the fear of people staring," the Independent quoted Miranda Levy, editor of Mother and Baby magazine, which carried out the survey.

World Health Organisation says that mothers exclusively breastfeed their babies until they are six months old, but barely a third of British babies are still exclusively breastfed at one week.

"Most women stop breastfeeding because they lack support," said Rosie Dodds, of the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), which helped to conduct the poll.

Michelle Atkin, who set up Little Angels to promote breastfeeding, thinks that "we see breasts primarily as sexual, and to use them for anything else confuses people".

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Ilana King, a counsellor for the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers, said: "If we saw more women out and about breastfeeding then more mums would start but we live in a bottle-feeding culture."

Source-ANI
RAS


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