New Zealand Listener - November 5, 2016

NOVEMBER 5 2016 http://www.listener.co.nz 21

about 80% of women in the US start out

breastfeeding, half give up or start supple-

menting with formula by three months.

Similarly in New Zealand, almost 80% of

babies born in 2014 were exclusively or fully

breastfed at two weeks after birth. But by

the three-month mark, that had dropped

to 56%, according to Plunket NZ. By six

months, just 25% of babies were exclusively

or fully breastfed in accordance with WHO

recommendations.

“It’s because of the utter lack of support

in society,” says Grayson. “In the US, we

have zero maternity leave – we’re one of

a tiny handful of countries in the world,

and the only developed nation, without

maternity leave. We’ve been promoting

‘breast is best’ in an environment where

it’s completely unfeasible for women to

successfully breastfeed their babies. They

have their babies and then they go back to

work with a breast pump three weeks after

giving birth.

“And we wonder why, at least in the US,

we now have really high initiation rates but

half of them give it up or start supplement-

ing with formula after just a few weeks. It’s

because it’s an impossible situation.”

New Zealand recently increased its

maternity leave provision from 14 to 18

weeks’ paid leave, at a rate equivalent to

about 48% of average previous earnings.

That puts us on an equivalent footing to

Australia but still well below the OECD

average in 2015 of 54 weeks’ paid mater-

nity leave. More importantly, it’s less than

the 26 weeks the WHO recommends for

exclusive breastfeeding.

THE TRICKY PART

Massey University nutrition lecturer Louise

Brough says the lack of support for mothers

once they return home from giving birth in

hospital affects ongoing breastfeeding rates.

“New Zealand has excellent initiation rates

for breastfeeding during the first two weeks

of life. However, after this there’s a steep

decline.

“Breastfeeding isn’t easy. Many women

need support with latching the baby on or

positioning the infant to breastfeed suc-

cessfully and without pain.” And though

midwives provide excellent support, says

Brough, they can’t be around 24 hours a

day. She says more community-based sup-

port is needed to help mothers when they

experience difficulties.

Says Grayson, “When a man has a prob-

lem with erectile dysfunction, he has an

entire team of doctors at the Mayo Clinic,

in the US, to help him. But when a woman

has a problem breastfeeding, she gets a pat

on the back and a can of formula.”

Grayson also believes the sexualisation

of women’s breasts in Western culture has

played a significant role. “When you look

at two periods of time in history when

breasts became sexualised, [the first] was

18th-century France, when all of a sudden

women started outsourcing the nursing of

their babies to wet nurses on a mass scale.”

The second time sexualisation occurred

was from the 1940s and 1950s in the US,

she says. “Breastfeeding declined basically

from the turn of the last century through

to the 1930s and 1940s. This was then fol-

lowed by the rise of starlets such as Marilyn

Monroe and big cone bras.” In both periods,

the sexualisation and fascination with wom-

en’s breasts came after they were hidden

from view – “they came to serve another

purpose”.

PUBLIC OUTCRY

Grayson says although we unfailingly pro-

mote the message that “breast is best”, we’re

doing so in an environment that makes it

almost difficult for many women to success-

fully breastfeed.

Women who breastfeed are still routinely

asked to leave cafes, shops and public places

in many countries, despite laws aimed at

encouraging breastfeeding and protecting

the ability to do so in public. And often this

occurs to a chorus of approval from online

commenters: “Another attention seeker.

Why do they have to be so public about it?”

Until recently, Facebook has actively

removed photos of breastfeeding mums

that it said contravened its regulations, a

surprising move, given the social media

network permits videos and images of

abuse, murders and terrorist activities. The

sight of a woman breastfeeding, it seems, is

more distressing to view than an image of

a beheading.

Breast milk has been “pivotal to the sur-

vival of the human race for hundreds of

thousands of years”, says Grayson, so “there

must be something special about it. It’s

amazing how easily we’ve forgotten that.” l

GETTY IMAGES

A University of Connecticut student feeds human embryonic stem cells.

Midwives provide

excellent support, says

Brough, but they can’t

be around 24 hours a

day, so more is needed.