What do you think is the biggest barrier to breastfeeding In Australia?

[Study Mummy]

I voted lack of continuity of care because what was a huge help to me was having the same midwife who had seen me throughout preg. and birth, do home visits for 5 weeks post-natally ... I found it very difficult establishing breastfeeding, it was PAINFUL, got mastitis, my son wanted feeding every 2 hours ... but having someone to answer my questions, watch me feed (without me having to get out of PJs or travel), tell me what a good job I was doing, was a godsend. She was also able to deflect the well meaning advice of my mother and MIL, neither of whom had breastfeed for very long or very successfully.

Close 2nd would be lack of education ... there's loads of information out there but it's very simplistic and none of it talks about how painful it can be. I kept remembering during 3 months of pain a midwife friend with 3 children who said to me just before the birth, "you do know breastfeeding is painful to begin with don't you?". The fact that a 'professional' who had also done it three times experienced the same thing was a comfort. I got so frustrated when I read though that if baby is attached correctly it won't hurt - now that's true, but not at the start when I had grazes and cracks - they needed to heel before it would not be painful. I used to give up trying to reattach after 10 to 15 minutes (screaming baby, tired mother ... it was just easier to deal with the pain - let's face it, it was less painful than childbirth!). Have stuck with it and my boy is now 10 months old and I intend to keep going until he's ready to wean (tho will be encouraging him from 12 months I think). Being honest, I have never enjoyed breastfeeding and have only done it because I know it's good for my son (and it's easier than having to take sterilised water and formula with me whenever I go anywhere). I am really looking forward to not having "working boobies" anymore!

[MantaRay]

Wow, so many response. Obviously I'm not the only one passionate about this topic! I have made my own submission to the enquiry so I'll try not to be too detailed here as well, but I also think there are many factors.

From the list, I think the main factors are conflicting advice, lack of continuity of care, lack of education (for the public and health professionals)and the availability of artifical milk. I experienced lots of problems when Jack was born - he had a tongue-tie and couldn't attach, I had engorgement beyond belief (and again with Thomas - I expressed over 440ml in one sitting and was still not empty!), sore nipples and mastitis twice in the first 3 weeks. Despite seeking help from mws and lc in the hossy, and the MCHN after discharge, I did not receive useful help until joining the ABA. In fact, not one health professional (until I found a gp who specialised in tongue-tie snips) believed that the tongue-tie was the problem. I was instead told I had flat nipples, and that it was this and not the tongue-tie that was preventing attachment. Then after Tom was born the mw told me I had great nipples for bfing - these are the same nipples, which is it??? Well, seeing as I was able to successfully feed Jack without nipple shields once his tongue-tie had been snipped, and was able to successfully feed Thomas without nipples shields from birth, I'm guessing the problem really was the tongue-tie.

In my submission I also list other reasons that I feel contribute to the low breastfeeding rates, including mis-information from health professionals (one gp told me that bm is as effective as water in preventing illness), the view in society that ff is the norm, especially after 6 months and even more so after 1 year, and the inability to get products and support for bfing easily - eg breast pads, breast milk bags, info on expressing and bfing after returning to work etc. I am sure there were more things I mentioned too (I think my submission is no 108 or 109 on the inquiry submissions website if you are interested).

Whoops, I think I did get too detailed. Better stop now!!

[MantaRay]

Off topic, but Karina, I continued to feed after returning to work. It was actually easier than I expected. I hope you give it a shot!

[Smoke Jaguar]

It's an intractable situation, the way I see it. Whilst, yes, formula and wet-nursing should be for when breastfeeding really does not work out (not for want of trying), it's hard then to, simultaneously, remove the stigma from those feeding methods so that mothers who CAN'T BF don't feel like failures. Again, education can help with this one. It is not helpful to have a 'breastfeed or die' attitude, and neither is it helpful to espouse 'if it's too hard, just use formula'. There IS an inbetween, but we get caught up with the extremes instead.
I knew I COULD bf, and yes, perseverance is a huge part of it. But, why do we persevere? Because we know the substantial benefits of it. Those who persevere do it because they KNOW what they're working towards.
It is too simplistic to say that the problem is that people don't persevere. Perseverance has an aim - those who don't know the aims, i.e. those who don't have that education, are far less likely to persevere when they hit the speed humps. The education (knowledge, experience, exposure) has to be there for perseverance to happen.
Lack of family support, to me, points to lack of education of the family and support systems. I really do think it comes back to education and knowledge.
ETA:
Katiepie - there SHOULD be facilities for you to express or bf at uni - get yourself in contact with your Women's Contact Officer person, facilities manager or student association and look into this. Please don't take it for granted that you have to wean. If you start making noises now, by the time you go back there should be something set up, if nothing is now. Find out if staff have expressing facilities. If they don't, get them on board, too! I've started to make noises at my uni about this. QUT has got excellent facilities for families and bfing students. It is not good enough to have students assume they have to wean! Please don't take this one lying down. It's your child's human right to have access to breastmilk and your right to keep feeding your child. I am only studying part time, but I also do volunteering, and I have to palm DS off to MIL to get some study in. It's heart-wrenching for me, but I express when he's not here and that provides milk for him for when MIL has him. I freeze it into cubes and grab a few, pop them into a sippy cup along with some food and off he goes. If he's going for more than a few hours then he gets a container of frozen EBM. It CAN be done. During a recent weekend school, when I wasn't able to use the psychology dept's sleep labs, I expressed in my car and brought an insulated lunch bag with frozen packs to store the milk till I got home. If your BFing means a lot to you, you'll find a way...I did
This is part of making BFing normal in our society. If it were normalised, there would be far more facilities available for expressing and BFing, because more workplaces, uni spaces, social spaces etc would be aware of what lactating women need access to. It's definitely a bee in my bonnet!