Comments on: Maternity Leave and Breastfeeding

By: Tarryn

Tarryn — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 17:31:28 +0000

I live in France and breastfeeding initiation is high. A lot of women stop breastfeeding at 3 months as they go back to work. There is huge support for new mothers who want to breastfeed. At the hospital I was at they have lactation consultants around all the time. You call them when you want to feed the baby and they help you with hold, latch etc. The normal stay in hospital for a first time mother is 5 days. This is good as you are in hospital while your milk supply is coming through. There are also weekly slits at the hospital for you to go in and chat with a midwife about breastfeeding, get advice and weigh your baby too.
I have had such a good experience starting breastfeeding and so grateful for the support I had.
Another point is that they try to involve the father and let him know that his support to breastfeeding is integral to it being successful.

By: Amber

Amber — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:26:15 +0000

Most of the studies I found, and the ones I referenced here, found a correlation between breastfeeding duration and maternity leave, or successfully establishing breastfeeding and maternity leave. However, they often didn’t find a correlation between initiation rates and maternity leave.

I suspect that there are many, many factors that contribute to whether someone tries to breastfeed, how successful they are, and how long they continue. There are cultural, socio-economic and other factors that influence this, and maternity leave is only one possible factor. It can probably be overridden by societal attitudes and so on.

Here in North America, breastfeeding initiation rates are high – most people try to breastfeed. Perhaps we’ve done a better job of convincing mothers that breastfeeding is important. But then we see that rates fall off faster when mothers don’t have good support, including good maternity leave. So mothers TRY to breastfeed, but many face difficulties when they try to combine working and breastfeeding a very young baby. I suspect that in France mothers don’t have the same opinions about the importance of breastfeeding, which is why they don’t try. It would be interesting to see if the mothers who do initiate breastfeeding in France are more successful, and breastfeed for longer, than American mothers.

Also, I want to say that even if mothers DON’T breastfeed, maternity leave is still important. Having a chance to bond with your baby is so valuable, no matter how you feed him or her.

By: Bondy Mehrmann

Bondy Mehrmann — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:27:56 +0000

I’m currently writing a paper about breastfeeding and how hypocritical it is for the American government to promote breastfeeding by directly targeting women and instilling guilt in those who don’t but does little to provide women with the resources to make breastfeeding a real choice. Maternity leave is a point which I thought was obvious, like the author here, but I am having trouble reconciling the fact that breastfeeding initiation rates in France are only 50% according to the LLL international. Another contributor to this forum was praising France’s maternity leave in this article:

http://www.strocel.com/maternity-leave-in-france/comment-page-1/#comment-53692

The maternity leave – breastfeeding connection doesn’t seem to be as clear-cut as I expected and I am interested in other people’s feedback on this apparent contradiction.

By: One Unhelpful Doctor — Strocel.com

One Unhelpful Doctor — Strocel.com — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:05:48 +0000

[...] mothers and babies. I just happen to believe that steps we take to promote breastfeeding, such as quality maternity leave and access to comprehensive support systems, are the same actions that promote the overall health [...]

By: Emily R

Emily R — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 03:24:34 +0000

this is interesting. when we lived in london, i could not fathom why the longer mat leave (6 months) didn’t translate to better breastfeeding. people quit very quickly there.

By: Francesca

Francesca — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:00:00 +0000

I’m totally with you on this.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:04:02 +0000

I was working as a freelancer when I was pregnant with my first, so I have no direct experience with maternity leave, but I agree wholeheartedly with you that breastfeeding is “vital to the health and well-being of mothers and children.” IT makes sense that this should factor in to any policies made in this area.

By: Desiree Fawn

Desiree Fawn — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:16:44 +0000

Having Canadian mat leave is definitely a HUGE help for my breastfeeding career,
It would be so much harder without it.

By: Brie

Brie — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:16:49 +0000

I think that the fact that I had a year long mat leave made breatfeeding much easier. In those early weeks when I wanted to give up I may have if I had known I was going back to work soon anyway.

By: Tracey

Tracey — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:05:28 +0000

I am so glad that I live in Canada. I had a problems with breastfeeding which took about 3 months to fully heal. If I had lived in the US I don’t know what I would have done.