Meeting of the Parliament 23 January 2024
I am sorry; I must continue.
Seeing other women breastfeeding in communities, and hearing breastfeeding being discussed and promoted as part of a normal life that children experience when they are growing up, will also make a difference. At our recent national breastfeeding celebration event, I announced that, following a successful pilot, the early learning modules of the breastfeeding friendly Scotland scheme had been launched. Those resources will help to embed the normalisation of breastfeeding to our youngest children through play and learning, to support intergenerational behaviour change.
I am fully aware that there is more to do. Bringing all our learning, evidence and practice closer together can make even more of a difference. That is why we will work closely with our stakeholders to set out our route map for the future. There will be a focus on consistency and equity for evidence-based practice and support that is both universal and targeted. That will be developed around the 2018 becoming breastfeeding friendly review, and we will set out progress on those recommendations and the learning from our national improvement programme, which we aim to publish in the spring.
We will also be clear on how we will use data to measure progress over the coming years and how we can continue to share learning and innovation between cross-sector partners.
We know that mums and other new parents welcome and value support from their peers, especially for infant feeding. To better understand the reach and impact of peer support, we will review that across Scotland over the next two years. That process will be informed by new parents who have used such services or tried to access them and by our service providers.
We are clear that we remain committed to the UNICEF UK baby friendly initiative, for which all settings—maternity and community—in Scotland are accredited, and we continue to use those standards as a foundation for continuous improvement. Those standards are built around core aspects of infant feeding care, including skin to skin, the mother-baby bond and helping parents to respond to feeding cues.
Public Health Scotland’s “Off to a Good Start: All you need to know about breastfeeding” and the Parent Club website have great accessible information.
I want breast milk to be seen as the normal nutrition for babies and all new parents to have the information and support that they need to provide safe and responsive infant feeding, and I am determined to make that happen.
I commend the motion to Parliament.
I move,
That the Parliament welcomes that, across Scotland, breastfeeding rates have risen and that inequalities in breastfeeding rates have reduced in the past few years, in line with additional funding provided by the Scottish Government of over £9 million; notes that there continues to be a need for a cross-sectoral approach to support, promote and protect breastfeeding; agrees that mothers’ experiences should be continuously improved and supported through evidence-based practice; recognises that parents should be free to feed their babies where and when they need to, including in public spaces, and be supported to do this through businesses embracing the national Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland scheme; agrees that Scotland should continue to embed the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative across its maternal, neonatal and community settings, throughout the NHS and core nursing and maternity education curriculum; further agrees that infant feeding services should be recognised as a vital service and integral to optimising infant feeding support across the NHS and its partners; recognises that third sector and voluntary peer support remain pivotal to babies being breastfed in the first few weeks of life and beyond, and agrees that breastfeeding has a role in supporting the economy, and gives all children the best possible start in life.