“World Breastfeeding Week (1st – 7th August) helps to highlight the importance of breastfeeding and the benefits it brings to mothers and their babies,” said Natalie Don MSP.
Running from the 1st – 7th August, the theme of this year's World Breastfeeding Week is "Enabling Breastfeeding: Making a difference for working parents". The campaign highlights the impact of workplace support, paid leave, and emerging parenting norms on breastfeeding. Both UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) are promoting this week, emphasising the need for greater breastfeeding support across all workplaces to sustain and improve progress on breastfeeding rates globally.
Supportive workplaces are key. Evidence shows that while breastfeeding rates drop significantly for women when they return to work, that negative impact can be reversed when workplaces facilitate mothers to continue to breastfeed their babies.
Family-friendly workplace policies - such as paid maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks, and a room where mothers can breastfeed or express milk - create an environment that benefits not only working women and their families but also employers. These polices generate economic returns by reducing maternity-related absenteeism, increasing the retention of female workers, and reducing the costs of hiring and training new staff.
Natalie Don MSP added:
“This is an important campaign to highlight the benefits of breastfeeding and equally, shine a light on some of the barriers that women face on their breastfeeding journey’s.
“It is not easy to return to work after maternity leave never mind the added worry of how you and your baby are going to cope if you are breastfeeding. Having employers who are understanding of this and who will facilitate a supportive working environment will help to ensure that mothers are empowered to make their own choices when it comes to feeding their baby.
“A good place to start is the Scottish Government’s Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland Scheme. The scheme aims to promote and encourage breastfeeding by providing information and training to businesses, employers, services and organisations on how to make premises friendly and welcoming for nursing mums. There are now over 130 places across Renfrewshire who are signed up and it has been great to see this number continue to rise through the year.“
“I hope this year’s World Breastfeeding Week theme has helped to highlight some of the inequalities that many women still face and inspires action to overcome this.
If you would like to know more about joining the scheme visit: https://www.mygov.scot/breastfeeding-and-your-business