Mothers should be offered shopping vouchers to breastfeed their babies, say researchers 

Breastfeeding helps boost a baby's immune system 
Breastfeeding helps boost a baby's immune system  Credit: Anthony Devlin PA 

Mothers should be offered financial incentives to breastfeed their children, academics have suggested, after a scheme saw hundreds fewer babies being bottle fed if women received shopping vouchers.

The controversial approach, which has cost taxpayers more than £460,000 to trial, gave women a £40 voucher if their baby was still receiving breastmilk at two days, 10 days, six weeks, three months and six months old.

The trial involved 5,398 mothers and their babies who were given vouchers and a control group of 4,612 who were offered no incentive on 46 maternity wards across the country.

Levels of breastfeeding among women given vouchers rose from 31.7 per cent to 37.9 per cent, equating to around 10 extra babies breastfed per ward at six to eight weeks, and more than 470 overall.

Each woman recieved a maximum of £200 worth of incentives, but the overall cost for each extra baby breastfed was nearly £1,000 suggesting that the scheme failed to work in at least four out of five cases. 

The trial, run by Brunel University and the University of Sheffield, could also not provide data on whether the incentives worked beyond eight weeks even though women still received the vouchers up to six months, as the control group was not monitored beyond that. 

However researchers said the vouchers helped demonstrate the importance of breastfeeding.

Co-author Dr Clare Relton, Senior Research Fellow, at the University of Sheffield, said: “Offering vouchers helped communicate the value of breastfeeding.

“Mothers receiving the vouchers reported feeling valued for breastfeeding. These are two reasons why offering the vouchers was effective in increasing breastfeeding rates.

“The UK has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world. It is now time to compare different ways of using money to support and enable mothers to breastfeed. 

“For example, would a universal single payment of £50 to mothers for exclusive breastfeeding at six to eight weeks give even better value for money?”

Breast milk contains antibodies that help babies to fight of viruses and bacterial infections and help lower the risk of asthma and allergies. It also contains hormones which regulates energy balance, and affects gut bacteria.

But while 73 per cent of babies start off being breast-fed, just 45 per cent receive it after six weeks in Britain and at at six months, just 1 per cent are being given only breast milk, as recommended by the World Health Organisation. (WHO)

Researchers also said the cost of a voucher would be offset by £17 million in savings to the health service by keeping infants healthier.

Research by Unicef has shown that if 45 per cent of British mothers breastfed for four months, and 75 per cent of babies were breastfed at discharge it would bring 3,285 fewer gastrointestinal infection-related hospital admissions and 10,637 fewer GP consultations. 

There would also be 5,916 fewer lower respiratory tract infection-related hospital admissions and 22,248 fewer GP consultations, 21,045 fewer acute otitis media and 361 fewer cases of Necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, is a serious disease that affects the intestines of premature babies.

“This is the first study to investigate whether providing financial incentives to breastfeed is cost effective,” said lead author, Dr Nana Anokye, Director of the Division of Health Sciences at Brunel’s Department of Clinical Sciences.

“We’ve shown that financial incentive programmes such as this can not only increase rates of breastfeeding, but also provide good value for money.”

The research was funded by Public Health England (PHE) and the Medical Research Council (MRC) and published in the BMJ’s Archive of Disease in Childhood.

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