Breastfeeding increases in France but still way behind UK and US
Almost three quarters of mothers now breastfeed their babies at birth in France, but health authorities say UK and US are still considerably ahead
The new study found that just after birth, 77% of women in France were breastfeeding their baby in 2021, compared with 74% a decade earlier
Iryna Inshyna / Shutterstock
Parents in France are breastfeeding their babies for longer now than they were 10 years ago but the country still has some way to go to catch up with other countries, including the UK and US.
“In 2021, half of mothers who were breastfeeding their child did so up to 20 weeks, versus 15 weeks in 2012,” said a new study by healthcare authority Santé publique France (SPF), which included 3,500 mothers.
The study found that in 2012, less than a quarter of babies were still being breastfed at the age of six months, but more than a third were still being breastfed at that age in 2021.
And in maternity wards, just after birth, 77% of women were breastfeeding their child in 2021, compared with 74% a decade earlier.
The study included ‘mixed breastfeeding’, i.e. where the baby is fed a mixture of breastmilk and formula milk, taken by bottle.
Breastfeeding v formula?
Breastfeeding is typically considered to bring advantages for the baby’s health, particularly in terms of early immunity and long-term health outcomes (although some say this is debatable). Some studies suggest that breastfeeding can also bring benefits to the mother, including less postpartum bleeding and a lower risk of postnatal depression.
The World Health Organization champions breastfeeding up to six months wherever possible, as do many major medical journals, including The Lancet.
However in developed countries where there is less risk of infections and running water is more available (in comparison to developing countries), and where high-quality formula can be found more easily, breastfeeding for many months is not always common.
Indeed in the study SPF raised concerns that France is still one of the European countries where breastfeeding is least practised. The health authority is keen to promote the practice whenever possible.
How does France compare to other countries?
In the UK, up to 81% of mothers attempt to breastfeed their child from birth, states a Unicef study with the Baby Friendly Initative. The UK is just under 20 years ‘ahead’ of France in this respect, as the figure was 76% in 2005, around where France is today.
However, there are still heavy drop-off rates in ‘exclusive’ breastfeeding in the UK.
By the time the baby is six weeks old, 55% of parents are still breastfeeding (with 24% exclusively breastfeeding, meaning they are not using any formula or other food). By six months, the rate is 34% (although just 1% are exclusively breastfeeding by this age).
In the US, the national average for breastfeeding at birth is 83%, states a 2023 study from the Front Public Health journal. However at six months only 25% of babies are exclusively being breastfed.
The same study found that in 2018 25.8% of infants were breastfed exclusively for six months, and 35.9% were still being breastfed in some capacity for up to 12 months.
These studies suggest that the vast majority of parents in France, the UK, and US, combine breastfeeding with formula - especially by the time the child is a few months old.
Breastfeeding not compatible with work?
The authors of the SPF study sought to explain what they see as too-low breastfeeding rates, citing the difficulty of reconciling a full-time job with breastfeeding, once the mother goes back to work after maternity leave.
“Half of the mothers who were still breastfeeding at six months were giving their child at least six feeds a day, and were therefore in a situation that was difficult to reconcile this with a return to work,” the study states.
The authors said that increasing the basic length of maternity leave would be a “lever for action” to increase the practice of breastfeeding for longer in France.
French law states that breastfeeding is allowed in workplaces for up to one year after the birth of a baby, with the employee also allowed to take up to one hour per day to breastfeed or pump.
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While breastfeeding is generally advised by midwives, some parents struggle, often leading to shame and fears around the use of formula.
For example, in the UK, the phrase ‘breast is best’ is often shared by midwives and healthcare professionals. However, in more recent years the alternative ‘fed is best’ has become increasingly common, in a bid to remove the stigma and shame around parents who struggle to breastfeed.
Breastfeeding battles
Breastfeeding has become more popular in France in recent years, and in 2021 MPs voted to reinforce the right to feed in public, after several incidents of aggression or exclusion towards mothers.
Read also: Bordeaux woman slapped for breastfeeding in public
Read also: Mother told off for breastfeeding in Louvre: What are rules in France?
Reports included a mother at Disneyland Paris being told by security guards she could only breastfeed in changing rooms. Disneyland later apologised.
In other cases, a woman was slapped by another woman on a tram in Bordeaux; another was slapped in a post office queue; one woman was ordered out of a shop in the seaside resort Biscarrosse; a mother in an Amiens government building waiting room was told to get out; and another woman left the Louvre when a security guard told her she could not breastfeed in the museum.
The museum later apologised and said that breastfeeding is “absolutely not prohibited” in the public spaces.
Each incident has sparked further debate over perhaps-outdated attitudes towards breastfeeding in France.
