breast feeding in public – a reply!

Thank you for your email of 24 December to Caroline Flint about breastfeeding in public places. As you will appreciate, Ms Flint receives a large amount of correspondence and cannot respond to all this mail personally. Your email has been passed to me for reply. The Government is fully committed to the promotion of breastfeeding, which is accepted as the best form of nutrition for infants. Under the NHS Plan, we have a commitment for ‘increased support for breastfeeding’ and a target in the Priorities and Planning Framework to increase breastfeeding initiation rates by two per cent a year. Local Delivery Plans require the NHS to return local data on breastfeeding initiation rates for the planning period 2005-08. The Department is keen to support women in their decision to breastfeed and to continue to breastfeed. Since 1999, the Department has undertaken several activities to promote and support breastfeeding. The commitment to the promotion of breastfeeding was demonstrated with the successful completion of the three-year Infant Feeding Initiative supported by the Public Health Development Fund. This included seventy nine best practice projects on breastfeeding, which have now been evaluated and published. This report provides an important contribution to understanding ways in which women in communities least likely to breastfeed may be supported. An Infant Feeding and Child Nutrition resource pack has been produced and distributed to all practising members of the Royal College of Midwives and Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association. This pack contains, amongst other things, the publication Good practice and innovation in breastfeeding, which is supported and endorsed by professional and voluntary organisations and by the UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative. This publication aims to provide a practical evidence-based resource for health professionals to support good practice and innovation in supporting breastfeeding. It is also recommended as a minimum standard of practice for NHS Trusts by the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services launched in September 2004. The Commission for Health Improvement has now set an indicator that will look at progress towards meeting the target. In addition, the Department also supports the annual National Breastfeeding Awareness Week, a public health campaign to promote the benefits of breastfeeding. The last campaign was held from 8-14 May 2005, focusing on increasing support for breastfeeding. The Department is keen to provide mothers with information and to support health professionals. A pictorial leaflet has been made available to mothers and health professionals through the NHS, aimed at communicating the practical aspects of ‘how to breastfeed’. A range of promotional materials is also available to use throughout the year that support and promote breastfeeding. The Department also works in collaboration with voluntary organisations and professional bodies to promote and support breastfeeding. A representative of each of the voluntary organisations sits on the National Network of Breastfeeding Co-ordinators (NNBC) group. Other initiatives also demonstrate our interest in, and commitment to, breastfeeding. As announced in the recent White Paper the new Healthy Start Scheme will provide vouchers to low income breastfeeding mothers to exchange for fruit, vegetables and milk. Healthy Start will provide greater opportunities for pregnant women and young children in low-income families to receive advice on diet and nutrition, including breastfeeding as well as other health issues. Health professionals will have a more visible role in the Healthy Start Scheme. A communications and training programme for health professionals will be introduced in parallel to the new scheme. As set out in the NHS Improvement Plan, prevention of disease and tackling inequalities in health will need to assume a much greater priority in the NHS. The White Paper on improving health sets the framework for action to improve diet and nutrition. We have also made a commitment to review the Infant Formula and Follow-on Formula Regulations (1995) with a view to further restricting the advertisement of infant formula and will continue to press for amendments to the EU Directive on infant formula and follow-on formula. I hope you find this reply helpful. Yours sincerely, Kalpana Chauhan Customer Service Directorate Department of Health

has absolutely nothing to do withe breast feeding in public laws at all does it!!