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30 1.3 Social and Cultural Influences on Food Choices
Social and Cultural Influences ●● many women are surrounded by family and
on Infant Feeding Choices friends who have not breastfed and have never
seen a baby breastfeeding
Factors affecting infant feeding practices adopted
by families and how they follow the infant feeding ●● many mothers feel embarrassed breastfeeding
recommendations include: in front of others both outside and within the
home
●● socio-economic status
●● parental age ●● breastfeeding in public may be met with
●● personality disapproval despite laws in both Scotland and
●● educational attainment of the mother England making it illegal not to allow
●● infant’s birth order breastfeeding in public places.
●● consistency of advice from health professionals.
In addition:
Breastfeeding vs. Formula Feeding
●● lack of appropriate staff training within health
Although the health benefits of exclusive services leads to lack of knowledge, skills and
breastfeeding from birth until weaning for both confidence in health professionals and
infants and mothers are well documented, about 1 inappropriate practices and routines persist
in 5 mothers in the UK do not initiate breastfeeding
at birth and by 1 week of age less than half of infants ●● breastfeeding is not a priority in all maternity
are being exclusively breastfed. Breastfeeding rates units and promotion is often left to advocates
are slowly increasing but for the past 80 years or so,
infant formula milks (breast milk substitutes) have ●● women may lack support to continue exclusive
been widely available and have become accepted by breastfeeding from health services and their
many people as equivalent to breastfeeding. social networks
Formula feeding is often portrayed in the media as
the socio-cultural norm and female breasts are ●● breastfeeding support services are frequently
associated with sexuality. As a result: short-term initiatives rather than embedded in
mainstream services.
100
Many women find breastfeeding challenging and
80 give up earlier than they wish to. As shown in
Figure 1.3.2, breastfeeding rates are higher among
60 mothers:
Managerial
Intermediate
Routine/manual
Under-20
Per cent 40
20
0
Birth 1 week 2 weeks 6 weeks 4 months 6 months 9 months
Time since birth
Figure 1.3.2 Duration of breastfeeding by mother’s socio-economic
group plus under-20s, 2005
