Category: Indicator 4

#WBW2019: Empower parents, enable breastfeeding

#WBW2019: Empower parents, enable breastfeeding

The theme for World Breastfeeding Week this year is “Empower parents, enable breastfeeding,” which fits the philosophy of our WBTi work very well.  The WBTi recommendations have been produced by a Core Group of 18 of the UK’s key government agencies, health professional organisations and charities working in infant and maternal health. The 46 recommendations, across ten areas of policy and programmes, parallel many of the recommendations of previous national breastfeeding initiatives such as the UNICEF Baby Friendly Call to Action, the Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly project (completed in Wales and Scotland so far), and the Breastfeeding Manifesto.


The WBTi assessment and recommendations for action are all about providing the structures, policies and programmes that families need in order to support mothers and infants to be able to breastfeed successfully. It is not a woman’s responsibility on her own, it is the responsibility of ALL of us, across society, to provide the support that mothers and babies need.

This has been echoed by the UN Human Rights experts, who have stated that breastfeeding is a human right of the breastfeeding dyad, and that states/ society is responsible for providing the structural support they need. Likewise this is the key message of the Lancet 2016 Series on Breastfeeding.

Gaps and barriers

Our UK report found many gaps and barriers in ten areas of policy and programmes across the UK:

  1. Lack of national leadership and national strategy on infant feeding, except in Scotland.
  2. Areas where maternity settings still do not meet the minimum UNICEF Baby Friendly standards, in particular in England.
  3. Weak regulations governing marketing by baby milk companies, no regulations governing bottle and teat marketing, and little enforcement of existing provisions.
  4. Lack of provisions to support new mothers to continue breastfeeding when they return to work.
  5. Gaps in health care professional training in infant and young child feeding (See both Part 1 and Part 2 of the WBTi report for full details)
  6. Cuts to peer support and other community breastfeeding support.
  7. No national communications strategy on breastfeeding.
  8. Lack of understanding of current guidance on breastfeeding for HIV+ mothers.
  9. No national guidance on planning for the care of infants and young children in emergencies or disasters.
  10. Poor data collection and monitoring of breastfeeding rates.

Highlights of progress

There are several bright spots, however, and in the two years since the WBTi report and recommendations were published, there have been improvements in several areas

  1. National policy work: Scotland already had strong national policy leadership. Scotland, Wales and England have taken part in the Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly project on scaling up breastfeeding interventions, with a government commitment to act on recommendations.
  2. With the latest NHS England Long Term Plan, all of the UK has now pledged to reach full UNICEF Baby Friendly accreditation in all maternity settings.
  3. Increased awareness of International Code issues in the UK include a relaunch of the UK Baby Feeding Law Group, a coalition of UK organisations working in infant and maternal health, to advocate for implementation of the International Code in UK law.
  4. The Alliance for Maternity Rights has included the protection of flexible breastfeeding/ expressing breaks and suitable facilities in their Action Plan.
  5. Several health professional councils have begun to review their training standards on infant feeding, and a working group led be UNICEF Baby Friendly has launched a new set of learning outcomes for the training of medical students, paediatric nurses, dietitians, pharmacists and maternity support workers/ nursery nurses.
  6. Continued cuts to local authority and public health budgets has continued to severely impact community breastfeeding support such as trained peer support. The WBTi team organised a conference on the public health impact of breastfeeding with the Institute for Health Visiting, exploring in particular the UNICEF Baby Friendly community requirements for “basic” health professional BFI training, “additional” local trained support such as peer support groups, and a “specialist” referral pathway at IBCLC level. The BFI, NICE and Public Health England guidance are clearly explained in the “Guide to the Guidance” by Better Breastfeeding. However there is potential for strengthening the commissioning of integrated breastfeeding services, through the increased profile of breastfeeding in England in the NHS Long Term Plan, breastfeeding representation now being included in the NHS England National Maternity Transformation Programme Stakeholder Group, and in Scotland and Wales with renewed national leadership and funding.
  7. Although no national communication strategies on breastfeeding have been developed, the national governments and public health agencies have developed breastfeeding campaigns and have supported national breastfeeding weeks again across all four nations.
  8. New guidance on infant feeding for HIV+ mothers from the British HIV Association has included detailed guidance on how to support mothers who wish to breastfeed (see also our guest blog from Pamela Morrison IBCLC explaining the new guidance here)
  9. Infant feeding in emergencies is still not covered by national guidance or universally in local disaster resilience planning, however a national forum hosted by Alison Thewliss MP, and led by the UK WBTI team and Dr Ruth Stirton from the University of Sussex Law School has kick-started the discussion to improve awareness and standards.
  10. Monitoring of breastfeeding rates remains uneven across the UK; Scotland has continued to conduct robust infant feeding surveys, while, in England, the PHE data on breastfeeding rates still have gaps in reporting. The UK government has now proposed to reinstate the national infant feeding survey in a new consultation on prevention. See also our blog by Patricia Wise on gaps and changes in our data (including how YOU can access the fingertips data), and guest blog by Phyll Buchanan MSc on how we can use the infant feeding data to reveal insights into health inequalities.

So we are in interesting times – we still face budgetary and cultural challenges, and families still face many barriers.

However change is clearly happening!

Coming up on the WBTi blog for #WBW2019

For World Breastfeeding Week, we are hosting a number of guest blogs detailing some exciting innovations: 
The launch of the Hospital Infant Feeding Network, with a website and a collection of posters and resources for health professionals working with mothers, infants and young children in hospital.

A new set of educational resources on breastfeeding and medications for pharmacists, from the wonderful Wendy Jones.

And a blog looking at some of the public health issues around breastfeeding support in the community, from Alice Allan IBCLC MPH.

Sign up HERE for WBTi’s email list, and don’t forget to sign up to follow our blog! 

Helen Gray IBCLC is Joint Coordinator of the WBTi UK team, with a special interest in supporting families in emergencies.

International Women’s Day, March 8th

International Women’s Day, March 8th

Today is International Women’s Day, which was first held in 1911. The idea had been proposed at the second International Conference of Working Women, held in Copenhagen in 1910. The Day symbolises the struggle for equality, particularly in the workplace, but is also an opportunity to celebrate women’s achievements. You can read more about its history here: https://www.internationalwomensday.com/About

The theme this year is #BalanceforBetter, summarising that a better world has a better gender balance. While considerable progress has been made (for example, it was only in 1948 that women at Cambridge were given formal recognition of their degrees, and the percentage of girls in primary school in the world has risen from 65% in 1970 to 90% in 2015*), there is still a gender pay gap and women are in the minority in business and politics. 

Balance requires removing conscious and unconscious bias about people; bias that results from assumptions being made about their capabilities. Alongside removing bias there needs to be support to meet specific needs individuals may have so that opportunities really are accessible – practical support includes items such as ramps and particular computer software. Thus, on the one hand, it’s essential not to assume differences that don’t exist so that women, men and intersex people of equal merit have equal opportunities.

On the other hand, it is important to respect real differences such as biological differences. Female employees who are breastfeeding need breaks for expressing or feeding, a suitable place to do that and facilities such as a fridge for storing expressed milk. If those were a legal requirement in the UK employers would be expected to provide them. Indicator 4 of the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative is about maternity protection and the 2016 UK report assessed how well the UK is doing and made recommendations.

We’ve also had several blogs focussing on the issue, a blog on breastfeeding and Shared Parental Leave from Ros Bragg at Maternity Action, and a summary of the issue from our own Helen Gray.

With regard to achievements, every mother who nourishes her baby with her own milk is doing something ordinary that millions of women have done before her yet is also extraordinary.

* Rosling H (2018) Factfulness Stodder & Houghton

Photo: iStock.com/Jonas Unruh

Patricia Wise is an NCT breastfeeding counsellor and a member of the WBTi Steering Group.

Breastfeeding and expressing milk at work: What ARE your rights?

Breastfeeding and expressing milk at work: What ARE your rights?

The media have been reporting today on the lack of legal protection in the UK for women to express milk or breastfeed when back at work. This is one of the reasons women cited for stopping breastfeeding in the U.K. National Infant Feeding Survey.

Media coverage of WBTi’s findings on gaps in Maternity Protection in the UK

WBTi Report 2016

The latest report on women’s rights to expressing breaks and facilities at work can be found in Indicator 4 on Maternity Protection in the WBTi report.

The media seized upon our findings on the lack of maternity protection, in particular the lack of any statutory rights for mothers to breastfeed or express milk at work.
There are resources to support employed mothers, and resources to guide best practice for employers (from Maternity Action and from ACAS), but mothers have no rights in law beyond basic health and safety.

The Guardian 16 November 2016


Our findings received coverage by Laura Bates in the Guardian 

and by Sophie Borland in the Daily Mail

The Daily Mail even featured a paragraph about how Sarah Willingham from Dragon’s Den balanced breastfeeding with her boardroom responsibilities.

Update on gaps in Shared Parental Leave

Ros Bragg from Maternity Action has also written this blog for WBTi about the current legal rights of breastfeeding mothers in the workplace, with the onset of Shared Parental Leave.

What has YOUR experience been, combining breastfeeding and returning to work?

Follow our blog and

Sign up for updates on WBTi UK here

Helen Gray MPhil IBCLC is
Joint Coordinator of the
WBTi UK Steering Group. She is one of the co-authors of Maternity Action’s “Accommodating Breastfeeding at Work: Guidance for Employers”

WBTi’s Twelve Days of Christmas: part 1

WBTi’s Twelve Days of Christmas: part 1

This blog explores links that can be made between the gifts described in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” song and the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative 2016 report. 

Day 1 – a partridge in a pear tree

Just as a partridge can find support and protection in the branches of a pear tree, each breastfeeding dyad needs a society that provides a supportive structure; to achieve this needs  coordination at national level through having a national policy, a strategic plan and effective implementation of that plan (WBTi Indicator 1). 

Jeremy Hunt, when Secretary of State for Health, declared that 

“The government is implementing the vision set out in the WBTi UK report. The Maternity Transformation Programme seeks to achieve the vision set out in the report by bringing together a wide range of organisations to work in nine areas… this includes promoting the benefits of breastfeeding by

  • Providing national leadership for breastfeeding celebration week;
  • Publishing breastfeeding initiation data;
  • Publishing breastfeeding profiles; and
  • Improving the quality of data on breastfeeding prevalence at 6-8 weeks after birth.”

A national assessment of UK breastfeeding policies and programmes, “Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly,” has now begun across England, Scotland, and Wales, led by the national governments and public health agencies and the University of Kent. Importantly, this initiative requires government commitment to implementing the resulting recommendations.

Another positive development since the WBTi report in 2016 is that in April 2018 Public Health England created a one-year Midwifery Adviser post for a seconded health professional whose responsibilities include breastfeeding, funded by the National Maternity Transformation Programme.

Day 2 – two turtle doves

This fits very well with Indicator 2 as it assesses the extent to which maternity-related services are Baby-Friendly accredited and the standards support loving relationships. Since the WBTi report, percentages of UK accreditations have increased as follows (2016 figure in brackets):

  • maternity services  62% (58%)
  • health visiting services  67% (62%)
  • universities: 43% (36%) midwifery and 17% (15%) of health visiting courses
  • childrens’ centres  16 (0)
  • neonatal units   6 (0)

Births taking place in fully accredited hospitals:

The WBTi recommendations call for “implementation and maintenance of Baby Friendly standards in all healthcare settings” in England and Wales. New maternity plans in December 2018 from the Department for Health and Social Care include “asking all maternity services to deliver an accredited, evidence-based infant feeding programme in 2019 to 2020, such as the UNICEF Baby Friendly initiative.” 
We would urge the government to extend the expectation of Unicef Baby Friendly accreditation as a minimum in community settings and Health Visiting Services, in neonatal units, and in midwifery and health visitor training programmes.

Day 3 – three French hens

The French hens are believed to symbolise the virtues of faith, hope and charity. Indicator 3 assesses the extent of implementation of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent WHA resolutions. There is faith, that incorporating the Code and resolutions in a country’s laws improves protection for all babies from commercial interests, as the experiences of individual countries like Brazil shows. There is hope that the Code and Resolutions will one day be implemented in UK law. Charity includes helping the vulnerable, such as babies.

Relatively recent changes include the World Health Assembly passing resolution 69.9 in May 2016, welcoming the new World Health Organisation 2016 guidance which clarifies that the Code applies to all milks and commercially produced foods marketed as suitable for infants and young children up to 36 months. A new Implementation Manual for this WHO guidance is also available.

The charity, Save the Children Fund, published its report Don’t Push It: Why the formula milk industry must clean up its act in February 2018.

The Changing Markets Foundation has published two recent exposés of formula company marketing tactics: Milking It and Busting the Myth of Science-Based Formula

The First Steps Nutrition Trust has published numerous reports and statements on topics around the marketing and nutritional composition of infant formula and baby foods 

In addition, the First Steps Nutrition Trust is now taking on the role of secretariat to the Baby Feeding Law Group (BFLG), a coalition of UK organisations working in maternal and infant health who work to bring UK law into compliance with the International Code. The WBTi UK Steering team is a member of the BFLG.

Day 4 – four calling birds

Indicator 4 assesses the protection and support provided by workplaces for employees who are breastfeeding. Four organisations helping to improve the situation include:

Since the publication of the WBTi report, tribunal fees were abolished in 2017. 

Day 5 – five gold rings

Gold is associated with precious things, and colostrum is known as “liquid gold.”

Indicator 5 assesses both the extent to which care providers are trained in infant and young child feeding and how supportive health service policies are. There are five professions which work most closely with mothers, infants and young children: midwives, obstetricians, paediatricians, health visitors and GPs. If they value breastfeeding and have the training to support mothers effectively they can serve as a golden chain of support.

 However, the WBTi report showed that there are gaps in health professional pre-registration standards in relation to the WHO Education checklist for topics they need to know about. Part 2 of the WBTi report contains further details for each health profession. In 2016, the General Medical Council published its revised Generic Professional Capabilities Framework, which all postgraduate medical curricula must fit. This includes a domain covering capabilities in health promotion and illness prevention. Medical curricula have to be revised to fit the framework and the RCPCH training for paediatricians now includes more about infant feeding at Level 2 (p.31).   Also, the RCPCH made a detailed policy statement on breastfeeding in 2017  and the RCGP developed a position statement on breastfeeding in 2018. 

The midwifery standards are currently undergoing a thorough review and there will be a consultation in February 2019. 

Members of the WBTi team have been supporting the work of revising and updating professional standards, and a working group led by Unicef Baby Friendly has now formed to take this work forward.

Day 6  – six geese a-laying

In the song the geese symbolise the six days of creation. 

Indicator 6 covers community-based support. So many mothers stop breastfeeding before they want to that it is really important to create an integrated system of support to avoid mothers falling into gaps between services. Six key aspects are:

  • Basic support: Health visitors and other health workers trained to a minimum Baby Friendly standard provide basic but universal help with feeding.
  • Additional: A peer support programme with trained peer supporters provides ongoing social support.
  • Specialist: For more challenging situations, mothers need to be able to access specialist help, for example from certified lactation consultants and breastfeeding counsellors.
  • Ready access to a tongue-tie division service where appropriate.
  • Good data collection is needed to underpin all these services.
  • Families must receive clear information about the services available.

WBTi Indicators 7-12 are covered in part 2

Sign up for our mailing list HERE

  • Images from WBTi UK Report and Microsoft ClipArt

Prevention intention

Prevention intention

A Vision for Prevention

Matt Hancock, UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since July 2018, launched his prevention vision on 5 November.

His other priorities are to advance health technology and provide better support for the health and social care workforce. He sees prevention as having two aspects. Partly it is about keeping well physically and mentally, to prevent ill health, but  also about the environment around people, their lifestyle choices and how existing health conditions are managed. The aims are for the average person to have 5 more years of healthy independent living by 2035, and to reduce the gap between the richest and poorest. At present there is a large discrepancy in spending with £97 billion (public money) spent on treating disease and £8 billion on prevention across the UK!

The proposed actions in the vision  are:

  • “Prioritising investment in primary and community healthcare
  • Making sure every child has the best start in life (our emphasis)
  • Supporting local councils to take the lead in improving health locally through innovation, communication and community outreach
  • Coordinating transport, housing, education, the workplace and the environment – in the grand enterprise to improve our nation’s health
  • Involving employers, businesses, charities, the voluntary sector and local groups in creating safe, connected and healthy neighbourhoods and workplaces”

The Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) paper is called ‘Prevention is better than cure: Our vision to help you live well for longer‘.

It states there is strong evidence that prevention works and recognises that a healthy population is both vital for a strong economy and for reducing pressure on services like the NHS (almost 10% of the national income is spent on healthcare). Average life expectancy is now 81 years, helped by:

  • advances in healthcare
  • changing attitudes so there is less stigma with some conditions
  • improvements in the environment, at home, work and in neighbourhoods
  • antibiotics and mass vaccination
  • public health programmes.

However, there are major challenges in the huge discrepancies between areas – ‘A boy born today in the most deprived area of England can expect to live about 19 fewer years in good health and die nine years earlier than a boy born into the least deprived area.’ (p.7)

Duncan Selbie, Chief Executive of Public Health England, welcomed the change of focus to more emphasis on prevention and pointed out the need for collaborative working – NHS, national government, local government, voluntary and community sector, and industry.  It will be important to monitor industry involvement to ensure that it does not create conflicts of interest, undermining health. Infants, young children, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers are particularly vulnerable, which is why the World Health Organisation developed guidance to protect them from conflicts of interest (WHO 2016 Guidance on the Inappropriate Promotion of Foods for Infants and Young Children) and other inappropriate commercial influence (International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, 1981, and subsequent WHA resolutions).

Improvements will depend both on encouraging individuals to choose healthy lifestyles and manage their own health, and expecting local authorities to take the lead in improving the health of their communities. The challenges of smoking, mental ill health, obesity, high blood pressure and alcolol-related harm are mentioned, along with the benefit of having a more personalised approach to health.

The section on ‘Giving our children the best start in life’ (p.20) mentions healthier pregnancies, improved language acquisition, reducing parental conflict, improving dental health, protecting mental health and  schools involvement, but infant feeding is not mentioned at all! 

However, in the Parliamentary debate on the vision (Prevention of Ill Health: Government Vision) on 5 November, Alison Thewliss MP made the case for supporting breastfeeding by investing in the Baby Friendly Initiative to bring all maternity and community services up to the minimum standard. Matthew Hancock’s reply sounds positive: ‘The earlier that we can start with this sort of strategy of preventing ill health the better, and there is a lot of merit in a lot of what the hon. Lady said.’

 

‘Prevention, Protection and Promotion’ at Public Health England

Earlier in the year (March 2018), Professor Viv Bennett, the Chief Public Health Nurse, and Professor Jane Cummings, the Chief Nursing Officer, came together to launch a campaign on the ‘3Ps –  Prevention, Protection and Promotion’, which is about actions to improve public health and reduce health inequalities. Breastfeeding is mentioned in the Maternity Transformation Campaign and Better Births and there appears to be increased govenment commitment to the key role breastfeeding plays in improving public health.

 

Directors of Public Health have a key role

The DHSC paper expects Directors of Public Health to ‘play an important leadership role’ (p.15). As an example, the Annual Report of Croydon’s Director of Public Health, published in mid-November, We are Croydon: Early Experiences Last a Lifetime, focusses this year on the first 1000 days of a child’s life.

It includes three breastfeeding recommendations:

  • Reset targets for increasing breastfeeding rates at 6 to 8 weeks and 6 months across the Borough and within particular localities
  • Achieve level 3 of the UNICEF Baby Friendly award
  • Turn Croydon into a breastfeeding friendly Borough, so women feel comfortable breastfeeding when they are out and about

 

How can progress on prevention occur unless it starts at the beginning – with infants? Will other Directors come up with similar recommendations?

 

Make London a ‘Baby-Friendly’ city

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, aims to “make London a ‘Baby-Friendly’ city” in the London Food Strategy. This strategy aims to increase the health of all Londoners from infancy onwards, including supporting and normalising breastfeeding across London Transport and across government buildings and workplaces, and encouraging all London boroughs to become Unicef UK Baby Friendly-accredited in maternity and community services.

 

The UK government is due to publish a Green Paper on Prevention in 2019 to set out more detailed plans and, together with the NHS Long Term Plan, which is due to be published soon,  is relevant to a future with better health for all.

What can YOU do?
Sign up for our mailing list and to volunteer in our campaigns here!

 

30. Photo for WBTi MAINN presentation
Patricia Wise is an NCT breastfeeding counsellor and a member of the WBTi Steering Group.

Breastfeeding and the First 1000 Days: the foundation of life

Breastfeeding and the First 1000 Days: the foundation of life

Breastfeeding: The Foundation of Life

The First 1000 Days of Life (from conception to the age of two years) are a critical window in a baby’s development. The 1000 Days concept was first widely used by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF, and there are currently numerous campaigns building on that theme.*

There is currently an inquiry into the First 1000 Days by the UK Parliamentary Select Committee on Health and Social Care. This blog brings together a few of the key concepts and resources on the importance of breastfeeding during the First 1000 days.

A joint supplement on the importance of breastfeeding in the first 1001 Days was produced by the UK breastfeeding organisations in 2015, which summarises much of the evidence.

A focused briefing on the the role of breastfeeding on infant brain growth and emotional development can be found here.

 

Breastfeeding: cornerstone of the First 1000 Days

Human babies are born extremely immature compared to other mammals; they are completely dependent on their mothers for milk, comfort and warmth.

  • “A newborn baby has only three demands. They are warmth in the arms of its mother, food from her breasts, and security in the knowledge of her presence. Breastfeeding satisfies all three.” ~ Grantly Dick-Read

Scientific research has continued to underscore the vital role that breastfeeding and breastmilk play in the development of the human infant. See our WBTi blog series for this year’s World Breastfeeding Week, from 31st July – 7th August 2018 for a review of the myriad ways that breastfeeding influences human development.

 

Breastfeeding: more than just food

This is the title of a series of blogs by Dr Jenny Thomas which focuses on some of the ways that breastfeeding contributes to immune development and more. Beyond physical health and development, however, breastfeeding also plays a key role in the healthy mental and emotional development of the infant. Breastfeeding provides optimal nutrition for the first months and years of life, alongside suitable complementary food after six months, but it also supports the development of the child’s immune system and protects against a number of non-communicable diseases in later life as well.

The World Health Organization commissioned high level reviews on a range of health and cognitive outcomes which were published in a special issue of Acta Paediatrica in 2015; these formed the foundation of the Lancet Series on Breastfeeding  which was published in 2016.

 

The impact of breastfeeding on maternal and infant mental health and wellbeing.

Breastfeeding can help strengthen mother and baby’s resilience against adversity, and can protect infants even when their mothers suffer from postnatal depression. It supports optimal brain growth and cognitive development. Unfortunately, if mothers don’t receive the support they need with breastfeeding, this can significantly increase their risk of postnatal depression. A summary of evidence can be found here.

The role of breastfeeding in protecting maternal and infant mental health is often poorly understood – mothers who are struggling need skilled support to resolve breastfeeding problems if they wish to continue breastfeeding

 

What does the future hold?

It is essential that policy makers, commissioners, and researchers understand the evidence and importance of breastfeeding, so that women who want to breastfeed get any support they need. The WBTI report outlines major policies and programmes that national infant feeding strategies need to include; other research on the psychological and cultural influences on mothers’ infant feeding decisions will help policy makers to develop sensitive and sound policies and programmes to support all families.

In the end, it will be essential that families themselves are heard, in order to create the support systems that our society needs.

 

 

*Unfortunately a number of infant milk and baby food companies have jumped on the “1000 Days” bandwagon too, despite the fact that breastfeeding is the centrepiece of the original 1000 Days concept, and replacing breastmilk with formula or baby food actually removes that fundamental building block from a baby’s development.

 

 

 

Helen Gray IBCLC photoHelen Gray MPhil IBCLC is Joint Coordinator of the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative (WBTi) UK Working Group. She is on the national committee of Lactation Consultants of Great Britain, and is also an accredited La Leche League Leader. She is a founding member of National Maternity Voices. She represents LLLGB on the UK Baby Feeding Law Group, and serves on the La Leche League International special committee on the International Code.

Shared Parental Leave and the right to breastfeed on return to work

Shared Parental Leave and the right to breastfeed on return to work

Guest blog by Rosalind Bragg, Director of Maternity Action

Maternity Action’s work centres on protecting the rights of pregnant women and new mothers in the workplace. As a member of the WBTi Core Group, Maternity Action was responsible for gathering most of the information on Indicator 4, “Maternity Protection in the workplace.” They have very kindly allowed us to republish their blog on the current status of breastfeeding in the workplace here during UK National Breastfeeding Weeks. 

The original blog can be found on Maternity Action’s website here, along with a range of resources on maternity rights. Follow Maternity Action for updates on their campaigns on this and other important maternity rights.

 

The right to breastfeeding breaks and facilities is a gap in the policy framework to support new parents to balance work and family responsibilities.  The current review of Shared Parental Leave policies is an opportunity to remedy this omission.

On May 15, we presented to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Infant Feeding focusing on Maternity Action’s campaigning against pregnancy and maternity discrimination and the particular challenges facing breastfeeding women in the workplace.

Women in the UK who wish to combine work and breastfeeding have very weak legal protections.  Health and safety regulations provide breastfeeding women with the right to a place to rest and to a health and safety risk assessment.  While some employers may offer regular breaks to breastfeed or express milk and a private space in which to do so, these are not required by law.

For most women, flexible working requests are the only legal avenue to seek adjustments to their working conditions to facilitate breastfeeding.  Employers must seriously consider flexible working requests but can refuse them if they have a good business reason for doing so.  On our advice line, we regularly hear from women struggling to negotiate flexible working arrangements on return to work.  Employers can, and often do, reject reasonable requests for adjustments to working conditions.

Many of the UK’s trading partners have more constructive approaches to balancing breastfeeding and work.  Germany provides paid breastfeeding breaks and facilities while the US provides unpaid breaks.  Australia offers an alternative form of protection by prohibiting discrimination on grounds of breastfeeding.  These are just a few examples.  It is unsurprising that the recent World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative (WBTi) review rated the UK 67th out of 91 countries on its law, policy and programmes that support breastfeeding women.

The current review of the Shared Parental Leave scheme provides an opportunity for Government to reconsider its approach to breastfeeding and work.  In 2013, when debates were underway on the new scheme, Maternity Action campaigned for a statutory right to breastfeed on return to work.  While this did result in ACAS guidance on the issue, legal protections were not forthcoming.

It is extraordinary that a scheme to encourage parents to share leave from their child’s first weeks should pay so little attention to breastfeeding.  The Department of Health recommends exclusive breastfeeding for six months and breastfeeding in conjunction with solid food thereafter.  Given the absence of legal protections for breastfeeding women, the vast majority of women who share leave will need to stop breastfeeding prior to return to work.  This reduces the number of women prepared to share leave with their partner and also contributes to the UK’s low rate of breastfeeding.

Whether women breastfeed or not, and for how long, is a decision for each woman to make.  The role of the law is to remove impediments to breastfeeding, enabling women to make decisions based on their own needs, not the convenience of their employers or other equally irrelevant factors.  It is long past time that UK employment law caught up with that of its trading partners and provided formal legal protection for breastfeeding on return to work.