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

[BlissfulMai]

Timing!
We have just gotten home from Antenatal Class number 3 of 4...all about breastfeeding!
The Family Birthing Centre at the Mercy in Melbourne encourages breastfeeding, we had a thorough Q&A followed by a detailed video.
I voted for lack of support/returning to work... cost of living, taking us away from our children...but I would also say that what we are used to seeing we get used to the idea of...and with this overwhelming consumer society we live in, with all the marketing and advertising, why wouldnt women accept formula as a normal way of feeing our children? They claim to be equal to if not better suited than breastmilk... so does this also come under misleading or inadequate information? Are we able to trust Australian Standards of Practice and Advertising to deliver us good, healthy products?

I question this when some ads tell us that sugar coated chocolate breakfast cereals are good for us...ya know?

All the very best for addressing this topic.

I look forward to hearing the outcome.

[amy&rafi]

I voted for lack of support/returning to work... cost of living, taking us away from our children...but I would also say that what we are used to seeing we get used to the idea of...and with this overwhelming consumer society we live in, with all the marketing and advertising, why wouldnt women accept formula as a normal way of feeing our children?

i find this a bit of a contradiction...

i don't really feel the cost of living is taking us from our children- we can choose whether we are going to put them in daycare and continue with the standard of living we had before we had children- or we can choose to downsize a little and look after them ourselves.

the only thing we have gotten too used to seeing is women returning to the workforce while they still have small children rather staying at home with them and choosing a simpler lifestyle... the overwhelming consumer society we live in promotes a working mother and father and the children miss out on much more then breastmilk.... we are choosing to accept alot worse things then formula as the normal way of feeding our children- we are accepting daycare workers to care and norish our little ones while we are away playing the socially acceptable 'working mother' role.

breastfeeding friendly workplaces are definatly a good thing- however the lack of them is not a problem- the fact that mum's are back in workplaces when they have children young enough to be breastfeeding is... i strongly feel this is a social (and possibly greed) problem, not a workplace one.