Breastfeeding
(asked on 6th June 2018) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to promote and support breastfeeding for mothers of babies in neonatal care.
NHS Digital has provided a count and proportion of babies recorded in the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS) as admitted to a neonatal unit by breastfeeding status on discharge from hospital, all submitters, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 year to date. The MSDS has been collected since April 2015 and captures information at each stage of the maternity service care pathway such as booking appointments, labour and delivery information. The most recent monthly data available is for February 2018. This information is provided in the following table.
| 2015/16 | 2016/17 | April 2017 - February 2018 | |||
| Count | Proportion % | Count | Proportion % | Count | Proportion % |
Exclusively breast milk feeding | 1,916 | 38 | 4,019 | 40 | 5,028 | 39 |
Partially breast milk feeding | 773 | 15 | 1,741 | 17 | 2,150 | 17 |
No breast milk feeding at all | 2,403 | 47 | 4,260 | 43 | 5,684 | 44 |
Missing/invalid breast milk feeding status | 3,658 |
| 7,994 |
| 9,844 |
|
Public Health England (PHE) delivers a broad programme of work which contributes to increasing breastfeeding. This includes within the Healthy Child Programme and the five mandated health visiting contacts with families which provide opportunities to discuss starting and sustaining breast feeding.
PHE and UNICEF UK have developed a toolkit to support commissioning of evidence-based interventions to improve breastfeeding rates across England, including provision of effective professional support to mothers and their families through implementation of the Baby Friendly Initiative in every maternity unit.
Data is not collected centrally on how much has been spent from the public purse per mother per year to support breastfeeding.