It is always interesting to know what the breastfeeding rates are to know how the current situation is and look for ways to improve these figures that, let's not forget, are better than years ago but they are still too low, being breastfed at six months only 38% of babies, when the ideal is that the trend was the opposite and the norm was that most would breastfeed.
New data indicates that not all women who decide to breastfeed end up doing so. In Valencia, for example, they have studied the situation and observed that 80% of women want to breastfeed their babies but only 65% end up doing so The day they leave the hospital.
15% do not breastfeed despite wishing
The data is then quite poor when babies are barely 4 or 5 days old, since 35% drink artificial milk and 65% maternal. If these data were the result of an informed decision by the mothers, we could still say that "it is what it is, it is a decision of each mother". The problem is that 15% of that 35% (43% of those who bottle feed) wanted to breastfeed and it would be necessary to see if the remaining 20% (57% of the total formulators) chose artificial milk from informed way, that is, knowing the risks that formula milk causes on health of babies.
I focus on that 15% to delve a little more, because there are many, many mothers. They are women who decide to breastfeed and who, due to lack of help or lack of support, are not doing so after a few days. The failure here is of the immediate environment after delivery, that is, of the family, of health professionals, or of all of them.
But not everyone can do it
It is true that not all women who want to breastfeed can do so, because there are cases that, even with all the information, support and help they can not do exclusive breastfeeding, but they are a minority, they are very few in reality, and to a greater or lesser extent, breastfeed a few days, a few weeks or a few months, doing mixed breastfeeding.
The rest could do it if on the way they met with conscious relatives, willing to help, who did not give outdated advice or insist that "today breastfeeding is a delay" and, above all, if they found professionals prepared and able to help solve problems of position, grip and cracks, and even taking into account possible problems that could lead to hypogalactia.
Come on, that the fact that we have such low breastfeeding rates is the fault of the environment and the normalization of artificial milk that has been done for decades, which should remain as a solution and not as a rule because, as I have already said, The norm, the normal, the logical thing, is for a baby to drink breast milk and, what is even more logical, that the mother who wants to do it receives help to achieve it.
