Better Health Start for Life Breastfeeding

Better Health Start for Life Breastfeeding, Office for Health Improvement and Disparities’s Breastfeeding marketing programme offers a suite of digital and hard copy support tools which assist mums and new parents through their first weeks of breastfeeding and beyond.

Breastfeeding provides all the nutrition a baby needs for the first six months and also helps build a strong emotional bond between a mum and her baby. Breast milk also helps boost a baby’s ability to fight illness and infection by passing on the mother’s immune defences. Babies who are not breastfed are more likely to get diarrhoea and respiratory infections.It is not uncommon for mums to experience challenges with breastfeeding and these problems can often be unanticipated, meaning that when they occur mums can tend to give up and instead switch to formula feeding.

Breastfeeding rates suggest that just 44% of mothers are still breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks.[1] Breastfeeding is something that a mother and her baby learn together, and getting the right support can help enable mums to breastfeed for longer. 

The information provided by all the Start for Life services is NHS-approved and both services are independent of Amazon and Facebook.

You may also be interested to see our suite of Introducing Solid Foods resources and campaign support we offer.

If you have any questions at all, please contact partnerships@dhsc.gov.uk.

[1] Public Health England data on breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks annual 2016/2017

Breastfeeding rates suggest that just 44% of mothers are still breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks[1] .

[1] Public Health England data on breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks annual 2016/2017

We know that what happens during the first few years of life (starting in the womb) has lifelong effects on many aspects of health and wellbeing – from obesity, heart disease and mental wellbeing, to educational achievement and economic status. We also know that parental behaviours impact heavily on their child’s behaviours. Parents’ health can act as an enabler or barrier to nurturing their children’s development.

Research shows that becoming a parent presents an opportunity to provide information to support behaviour change, and that when looking for information and advice people want validated sources of authority, such as the NHS. This puts the Start for Life Information Service for Parents in a unique position within a very crowded market of pregnancy and parenting advice.

Start for Life Information Service for Parents is a universal offering, for all parents-to-be and parents of children up to four and a half years old. The service provides regular emails to the audience as their child reaches key milestones.

Start for Life has a particular focus on those from less socioeconomically privileged backgrounds, as we know that they are much less likely to be searching for and accessing reliable information on pregnancy and parenting. Healthcare professionals are also a target audience as they are a key channel for driving people to Start for Life services.

A free bite-sized e-learning introduction to the best start in life including key evidence, data and signposting.