Foreign-born women more likely to breastfeed

Foreign-born women living in Ireland are 10 times more likely to breastfeed than their Irish counterparts, a conference heard yesterday.

But the absence of a breast- feeding culture in Ireland is so prevalent that these women are only 2.4 times more likely to breastfeed than their Irish counterparts after living in Ireland for 10 years.

Fiona Dunleavy, a senior clinical dietitian in Dublin, told a medical symposium on nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life, that there needed to be a change in culture in Ireland to make breastfeeding the norm rather than a lifestyle choice.

She recommended that teenage girls should be taught in school about the benefits of breastfeeding.

Ireland has one of the lowest levels of breastfeeding rates in Europe. Initiation rates (women who start off breastfeeding) are at 50 per cent in Ireland in comparison with 80 per cent in the UK.

Just 19 per cent of mothers, who have not completed the Leaving Certificate, breastfeed. For women with a degree, that figure rises to 75 per cent.