Date published: 2007/05/14
The BBC says:
Fewer than one in a hundred women follow government advice to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months, figures show.
The Infant Feeding Survey shows in 2005 76% of UK mothers started out breastfeeding - up 7% from 2000.
However, most resort to formula within weeks, and fewer than half still breastfeed by the time their child is six weeks old.
By six months, just one in four are still breastfeeding.
The survey, which has been carried out every five years since 1975, also found that well educated, professional women aged over 30 who were first time mothers were the most likely group to breastfeed.
Professor Denise Lievesley, of the Information Centre, which produced the study, said the overall message was positive as more women were breastfeeding for longer.
This is a classic BBC health story where they try to spin both sides of the story at the same time. So first we are told that only "1 in 100 women follow government advice to breasfeed exclusively for the first six months". Then we are told that in fact "1 in 4 are still breastfeeding" at six months. And at the end we are told that "the overall message was positive". Well, since 1 in 4 are still breastfeeding at six months, the original claim that it is only 1 in 100 means that the BBC must be relying on that key word "exclusively". So presumably if a women bottle feeds a baby just once in the first six months, then she is deemed to have spurned government advice, and evidently almost every woman (99 in 100) does this. How dare the peasants revolt in this way. If the government paints the world as black and white, the peasants better just accept that view without question.
It seems that the negative spin in the first sentence is intended to show that the government must do more to encourage breastfeeding, e.g. by making it illegal for anyone to object to breastfeeding in public. And the positive spin at the end is presumably to show that the people behind the survey are doing a jolly good job and should continue to get government support.
And is anyone surprised that "well educated, professional women aged over 30 who were first time mothers were the most likely group to breastfeed"?
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