Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Pauline O’Reilly for this motion which I wholeheartedly support. The figures really illustrate how startlingly different Ireland is when it comes to breastfeeding rates. At birth, the rate here is 62% but in the UK it is 81%, in the US it is 79% and in Australia it is 90%. By the time women leave hospital, the rate has fallen to 37% but the fact that at three months old the rate is 31% shows that the most vital period is in the hospital. It is so important to make sure people are getting support in those early days.

That was my experience as well. I could not breastfeed exclusively but I really put so much effort into trying. I was given the impression when I was pregnant that the baby would nearly latch on itself when it came out. I was surrounded by contraptions to make it happen, including an industrial-sized pump that I can still hear to this day. My baby was very small when she was born and I remember that formula was just provided because the breastfeeding was not working. When I spoke to the nurse the next day and asked if someone could come and help me with the breastfeeding, the answer was that it was too late. I was vulnerable because I had a Caesarean section, was tired and so on but I really had to push to get that support, just to be able to do what I could do. That was nearly ten years ago. There was a lactation consultant in the hospital but by the time the consultant was free to speak to me, I was well gone.

I really do not want any woman to feel guilty about not being able to breastfeed. One does what one can. I do not want them to feel guilt or to feel less than. I am not going to try to put pressure on any woman. The pressure should be put on the system that is just not working for women. So many women put pressure on themselves to be perfect and it is hard for them when they have the impression that breastfeeding is natural and easy but they find it is not. For some people it is easy but for others it is incredibly difficult. In my case, no matter what I did it was never going to work in the way I wanted it to work. We need to provide multi-level supports. This is a public health issue and ambition and it must be reflected in our public health system at every touch point. This is about having lactation consultants in the hospitals and providing support for people when they leave hospital. The public health nurse that I had was brilliant. I could have hugged her whenever I saw her and I am sure so many women feel the same way when they have a new baby. The public health nurse for those first two weeks, which feel like two years, becomes part of one's inner circle. The public health nurse really helped us through that period.

This is about all of the touch points and having the expertise in place but it is also about education. I worked in advertising for over 15 years and one of the accounts I worked on back in the day was that of the health promotion unit of the HSE.I featured in an ad about breastfeeding because it was targeting young women before they were even likely to think about breastfeeding. It was very much putting it out there on their horizon as something to think about - trying to make them aware of it now as opposed to something they will think of when they are pregnant. I do not know where those ads have gone because they were very informative and were about the benefits of breastfeeding. Even though we know about the topline benefits, and I know the benefits because I have had children, not everybody knows just how good breastfeeding is for baby and for mum. It is disappointing that over the past number of years our breastfeeding rates have declined. When we have a breastfeeding strategy, we need to put the money into education, as I have already said.

A number of other issues were mentioned in the Senators’ motion. We need to think about universal design when we are considering our public realms. Women are lactating. The number of times that I pumped and fed babies in toilets needs to be thought about. We need to approach breastfeeding as another everyday occurrence where we are just feeding our babies. We need to support women in that regard, along with the groups that help. We have a cultural barrier and memory loss around breastfeeding.

I note that the lactation consultant positions have not been filled. Are these part of the HSE national panel of recruitment? Do these positions have to go through that panel in order to be recruited? We have to put much more into delivering these services for people when they actually need them.