Breastfeeding Should Be Included In School Curriculum, British Doctors Say
In order to encourage more moms to breastfeed, kids should learn about the importance of the practice in school, British medical experts suggest.
The UK has particularly low rates of breastfeeding - about one-third of babies receive their mother’s milk at six months - and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) hope their new guidelines will boost those numbers. In the United States, about half of babies are still breastfeeding at six months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Read: Why Does Breastfeeding Burn So Many Calories? Health Benefits Associated With Nursing
Additionally, health experts hope that including breastfeeding education in schoolchildren’s curriculum will help eliminate the stigma associated with the natural practice.
“The health benefits of breastfeeding are beyond question, from reduced likelihood of intestinal, respiratory and ear infections to hospitalisation,” RCPCH president, Professor Neena Modi, said in a statement. “Regrettably the attitudes of a large part of society mean breastfeeding is not always encouraged; local support is patchy, advice is not always consistent and often overly dogmatic, support in workplace not always conducive to continued breastfeeding and perhaps most worryingly breastfeeding in public is still often stigmatised.”
One of the many recommendations suggested by the RCPCH states that governments in each nation should ensure that there’s personal, social, and health education about breastfeeding in schools. A full list of the RCPCH’s messages and recommendations can be viewed here.
Read: Breastfeeding May Help Mothers Combat Chronic Pain After C-Section, Study Finds
“When we asked groups of children and young people what they thought about breastfeeding, we were really surprised - and a little bit upset - to hear the word ‘yucky’ being used by them,” Modi told the BBC. “Clearly the perception that we, as a society, are giving children, is not the perception we want them to be getting.”
Mothers in the United States and other countries also battle the same stigma. In 2011, Donald Trump called lawyer Elizabeth Beck “disgusting” when she requested a break from a deposition in order to pump milk.
“She wanted to breast pump in front of me and I may have said that’s disgusting. I may have said something else. I thought it was terrible,” Trump told the HuffPost in 2015. “She’s a vicious, horrible person.”
Trump’s attorney Allen Garten who was at the deposition told CNN, “She was disgusting. She was attempting to breast feed -- to pump in the middle of a deposition room with five lawyers and was not excusing herself.”
See also: Vaccine Rumors And Breastfeeding: Report That Said CDC Told Moms To Delay Breastfeeding Debunked
