Today I was invited onto BBC World News as part of World Breastfeeding Awareness Week. I highlighted that in the UK less than 25% of six week old babies are exclusively breastfeed at 6 weeks and that younger mums are much less likely to start or continue to breastfeed than older women or women in managerial roles. I commented on how confused we are about breasts in the UK and drew attention to the powerful poem by performance poet Hollie McNish which you can watch here: youtube.com/watch?v=KiS8q_fifa0

As a charity committed to reducing inequalities in child-health across the UK, one of Best Beginnings' key work-streams is to support women to breastfeed. This is because breastfeeding provides a powerful safety-net against the impact that poverty has on health. We are delighted to work collaboratively with the UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative, the Royal College of Midwives and many other professional bodies, parent support charities and breastfeeding charities in this work.

At the heart of Best Beginnings' work supporting breastfeeding is the ‘From Bump to Breastfeeding’ DVD endorsed by 20 organisations which we launched in November 2008. The main film of the DVD follows 9 women on their journey from pregnancy to become breastfeeding mothers, some of them overcoming challenges along the way. You can watch the films here: bestbeginnings.org.uk/watch-fbtb You can also buy the DVD for £3: bestbeginnings.org.uk/Pages/Shop/

Since its launch, the ‘From Bump to Breastfeeding’ (FBTB) DVD has been distributed to more than 1.8 million women across the UK. We have recently made an Arabic version of the DVD for the United Arab Emirates, as the power of the human narrative transcends geography, language and culture.

Featured in the news piece are a few of the postcards created as part of two art competitions Best Beginnings ran in 2007/2008 which culiminated in the Get Britain Breastfeeding Art Exhibition (GBB). You can purchase copies of the postcards (priced at £3) here.



It is interesting that the BBC choose not to use the winning posters, featured below. Apparently they showed too much flesh for a day-time audience.

Please do tweet your feedback using @BestBeginnings @AlisonBaum and using the hashtags: #FBTB #GBB