Ms Fiona Rea:

As Ms Etherton has said, anecdotally there is no research on it. I am seeing no great rise in numbers but my fear at the beginning was that many mothers were not getting the help they wanted due to the lack of support. I had a fear that the rates would really plummet but it has been the case that many mothers who are concerned about Covid and their babies' health are breastfeeding where they may not have done so previously. We are certainly seeing a rise in numbers in that regard. I believe we will come out of it probably where we went into it. The early studies on breastfeeding and protection for the baby came out quite quickly. This impacted a lot for some mothers and it certainly had a bearing on the decisions made by a lot of mums.

Reference was made to donor milk. It would be terrific if we had a donor milk bank down south. They offer a terrific service and they are always looking for donors. They are in very short supply. A lot of the time they have busy times when they would be a little short. We know it is so important for babies in a neonatal intensive care unit to receive donor milk if mum is not able to produce the milk herself. A very informal system of milk sharing goes on around the country. Lots of mothers share breast milk informally. It would be terrific if it could be formalised in some way. This, however, brings money into it and it would exclude some mothers from having the service. A lot of it comes down to money and that should not be part of a mum's choice to breastfeed.

On the issue of antenatal classes and mothers feeling that they did not get enough education, Ms Cahill and I are both antenatal educators with Cuidiú, and we do cover it. Anybody who has had a baby will know that on the first baby, one's thoughts are "How am I going to get this baby out?" The mother hears all of the other bits about the baby such as changing nappies, but breastfeeding is on the periphery and she may not be focused on it until the baby arrives home. Then she realises that perhaps she should have taken that information on board a little more. Yes, it is absolutely included in all of the antenatal education, but potentially there should be a class very quickly after birth. I love the idea of a free lactation consultant visit for everybody. That would make it such an even playing field. It would make it so much easier for mothers to get the help in a timely manner. Very often it is just too late: they have made their decision and there is no going back for them. As Ms Byrne and Ms Etherton have said through lots of their stories, those decisions live on for mothers. They do not make those decisions lightly and they find it very hard to reconcile afterwards. We find that with antenatal education, meeting a mother on her second baby is a totally different story to meeting a mother on her first baby. She is a different person and her decisions are much firmer. Mothers educate themselves so much differently at that point. If we could somehow channel that for first-time mothers we would certainly make big strides and help lots more mothers in that way.