Breastfeeding tips
Rates of breastfeeding among Australian women continue to be below World Health Organisation standards despite a concerted push from governments and the community to encourage it.
A long-term study by the Australian Institute of Family Studies tracked the lives of 5000 children and showed that by the time babies was six months old the number who were being exclusively breastfed had dropped to 14 per cent, compared to 80 per cent at birth and 56 per cent at three months old.
The World Health Organisation recommends that babies should be 100 per cent breastfed for the first six months of life "to achieve optimal growth, development and health".
"Breastfeeding is the normal way to feed a baby and by not breastfeeding there are risks to a baby's health, there are lots of studies that document that," said Margaret Grove, the Australian Breastfeeding Association national president.
"I think women are made to feel embarrassed by breastfeeding and people sometimes feel a bit squeamish about it."
The report also found that the majority of the children surveyed were being fed solids earlier than WHO guidelines recommended. The organisation suggests the introduction of solids at six months, but by five months 62 per cent of children in the study were already on solids.
Last year a wide-scale parliamentary inquiry into breastfeeding found that by the time Australian babies reached six months of age only 18 per cent were being exclusively breastfed. The inquiry also said the rate of breastfeeding among children older than six months was well below a number of Western countries including Sweden, Canada and Great Britain.
The Federal Government this year allocated $2.5 million over five years for a national breastfeeding helpline.
Ms Grove said her organisation fielded 250,000 counselling calls a year from women needing help and information.
"I think a lot of it is women just don't know how to breastfeed and they don't get the support when it goes wrong," she said.
However Diana Smart, the general manager of research at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, said the return to work was also a factor in a woman's breastfeeding routine.
For those women who returned to permanent or casual work by the time their children were three months old, the study found their breastfeeding rates had dropped enormously.
When children reached nine months old, they were more likely to be breastfed if their mother had not returned to work or was working less than 10 hours a week. Only those women who worked for themselves had a different outcome.
"Those women who were self-employed had higher rates of breastfeeding and that speaks to the flexibility of the arrangements that they put in place," Ms Smart said.
Allowing women flexibility and time with their children has been claimed as one of the benefits of introducing paid maternity leave by advocates in numerous submissions to the Productivity Commission's present inquiry.
