by Catherine Hine, CEO
If we are serious about investing in services that make a practical difference to families and ease pressure on UK health services, high-quality infant feeding support ranks highly on the priority list.
Last year, by way of example, the now 24/7 National Breastfeeding Helpline (NBH) provided -often lifechanging- support to almost 30,000 parents. An external evaluation found that 99% of callers who contacted the NBH service and wanted to continue breastfeeding felt more confident doing so after their call. Among callers living in communities facing the greatest barriers, that figure hit 100%.
The same evaluation found that many of our callers contacted the helpline before reaching out to a healthcare professional. By helping families access timely, high-quality support at an early stage, infant feeding support has real potential to improve families’ experiences of the early years while helping keep NHS services available for everyone when they need them.
We cannot know for sure what every caller would have done if the helpline had not been available. We can use data available to get a sense of potential impact. According to the King’s Fund, an urgent care or low-complexity A&E visit costs around £114, rising to £173 to £563 for more complex A&E visits. If around a third of the parents who contacted the helpline would otherwise have sought urgent NHS support, that would be equivalent to almost 10,000 visits each year. Using King’s Fund costings, this suggests that the NBH alone may help avoid between £1.1 million and £5.3 million in direct NHS costs each year.
These are estimates rather than measured savings, and many parents would instead have contacted a GP, health visitor, midwife, maternity service or NHS 111. By any measure, this is an investment that pays a good social as well as economic dividend. The UK’s assessment through the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative brings into sharp focus how much more we must all do to create the support system all parents need and to give more children the best possible start in life.
Like many parents, before my daughter arrived, I assumed that by some mysterious alchemy, feeding would happen. The course I attended gave me little inkling that breastfeeding might be any more complicated than feeding my phone. To say I had not appreciated how complex and all-consuming this could feel, to put it politely, is an uncomfortably engorged breast of an understatement. I had little idea where to turn – or indeed, where not to turn – to find answers and support.
We hear many similar reports from parents through The Breastfeeding Network’s services: far too many describe feeling blindsided by feeding their baby with so many questions, trying to work out what is normal and where to find reliable information and support. Whilst this is by no means everyone’s journey, for many who want to breastfeed the experience can leave them reeling, in some cases, with levels of loneliness and distress they never imagined.
This is why this year’s World Breastfeeding Week theme of Breastfeeding for a Sustainable Start in Life resonates strongly. At its heart is a simple idea: families across the UK cannot cross fingers or rely on detective powers to find trusted information, practical help or skilled support. Excellent support systems bring together healthcare services, community support, family-friendly workplaces and trusted sources of information that all families can rely upon throughout their feeding journey, however it pans out.
Through BfN’s work supporting tens of thousands of families across the UK every year, we know that making information and help available to all is important but not the only part of the answer. As Sir Michael Marmot’s principle of ‘proportionate universalism’ explains, all families in the early years need high-quality infant feeding services. Some families, however, face additional barriers to accessing or benefiting from those services and will need more help -by design- to access and benefit from the support available.
Systems of support – whether universal or targeted – depend on people: health professionals providing consistent, evidence-based care; trained volunteers bringing both expertise and lived experience; employers creating breastfeeding-friendly workplaces; and community organisations helping all families feeding babies and young children, to feel welcomed and supported. Breastfeeding for a Sustainable Start in Life requires long-term investment in quality, in evidence-based practice and the people and organisations. This is about more than breastfeeding. It is an investment in families, communities and health services through support that results in more parents feeling informed, supported and confident in their feeding journey.
We already know a great deal about what helps families on their infant feeding journeys. The challenge is to strengthen and sustain services, workforce and community support that families rely on, so that more families can access timely help when and as they need it.