Breastfeeding ‘bribes’ support gender & class stereotypes

I just can’t even decide where to begin with this topic. I really can’t. I feel completely and utterly incensed by this scheme and I couldn’t help but share my thoughts.

For those of you that don’t know, trials in England have just finished for a new ‘breastfeeding incentive’ scheme where new mothers are given shopping vouchers in exchange for breastfeeding their babies until they are 6 weeks, and more vouchers again if they make it to the golden 6 months. The mothers can earn as much as £200! According to researchers the scheme has been successful, meaning that the trials will now be done in a broader area of the country with more mums in the hope that the scheme can become nationwide in the future. You can read the BBC coverage of the results here and more information about the trial here.

The whole thing makes me want to scream! Let me just say, as a mother who breastfed one of her children for 9 months, and would have loved to continue had the child himself not decided he wanted  to wean, I am all in favour of encouraging women to breastfeed, if that is their desire. I want to provide support and care for women who may need a bit of extra help breastfeeding and I think it’s something that is the most natural thing in the world.

This scheme is not the way to do that though. It is a pointless way of giving credence to social and gender stereotypes, while simultaneously punishing those who genuinely wish to breastfeed but can’t for one reason or another. And yes, those ladies do exist.

The scheme is aimed at women from areas where breastfeeding rates are below 30%, and assumes that the majority of women in these areas are not likely to breastfeed because their families and friend’s don’t and it isn’t seen as the norm. That could be true, however what is wrong with using the money that will be plowed into this scheme to provide breastfeeding support staff and even, heaven forbid, open coffee mornings for women to get together and talk about feeding – their fears, their perceptions etc. I think it’s pretty clear that the assumption is that these low breastfeeding rate areas (which are incidentally also often low income) are filled with women who would respond better to a bribe than they would to being given clear information about what is best for their baby.

And what does that say about the government’s perception of women in general? I wonder if this scheme would be rolled out if breastfeeding was something men did? Would it be assumed that a shopping trip would wow and delight, or would men just be given the facts, by trained professionals? I think the answer to that is pretty clear.

It isn’t just the gender and class stereotyping behind the scheme that bothers me so much. This scheme is just another way of tearing down mothers who have tried desperately to breastfeed and have been unable to. With Reuben my labour was incredibly traumatic and eventually I had an emergency Caesarean section. Not something that is uncommon, however after 48 hours of trying desperately trying to get some milk into my little man who was becoming dehydrated, the paediatrician and midwives all recommended that I offer him a bottle. Low and behold he fed like a mad man, and despite several attempts after that to feed him myself, he never would and I never had even a dribble of milk or colstrum. The most extracted through hand expression was 0.8ml. That was it. It was only afterwards that we realised the chances were I couldn’t produce milk because of the extreme infection, which later turned into sepsis, that was raging through me at the time. I still find this a hard topic to talk about, I felt like such a failure and there really was no support available for me in my area. I desperately wanted to provide my son with the best nutritional start I could.

In this instance, I would have been the mother who was reminded that I just didn’t make the cut, I wasn’t quite good enough, not only in my eyes, but in the eyes of others too. I didn’t deserve the shopping spree because my body failed me, not because I made a choice about anything within my power, and not for lack of trying.

I had a different story with Toby, though I had the initial problems with feeding that lots of women have, I was blessed to have a wonderful level of milk production. The issue was his latch. Was there a breastfeeding support worker in my area? Yes. Was she helpful? No. The lady that came lacked training, or maybe just people skills, she merely told me it was a latch issue and we’d ‘get there’. I had hardly any advice about how to change this situation and help Toby latch because she didn’t really know! There was no offer of a breastfeeding peer support group, no chance to speak to other’s who were having the same problems and I wasn’t even given advice on how to minimise the pain I was in with a huge blood blister on one nipple. Was my health visitor helpful? No, she was quite clearly repulsed by breastfeeding and advised me to move on to a bottle if I couldn’t cope.

Why is the government throwing money at these schemes when we could be putting things in place that genuinely help breastfeeders.? Why not, instead of assuming that women are more interested in handouts than the welfare of their children, put the money towards peer support groups, breastfeeding classes, breastfeeding support workers, better breastfeeding support training for health visitors?  Why not, shock horror, make breastfeeding something we talk about in colleges and schools alongside sexual health classes, to encourage the normalisation of it?

I have met some amazing peer breastfeeders and support workers, I would like to see these people more frequently and given more support to continue in their roles, not just as volunteers, but as paid and respected professionals.

So, I think it’s relatively clear how I feel about these ‘incentives’ but what do you feel?

Harriet x