Released on: 22 January 2019
In response to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) ‘State of Child Health: Two Years On’ report, Sarah McMullen, Head of Knowledge, NCT, said:
“We are pleased to see the report’s findings that child health is now high on the agenda, particularly the Government’s pledge for all maternity services to have an accredited infant feeding programme.
“However, we share the RCPCH’s concerns about reductions to funding for frontline public health services and the impact that this has on new families at such a critical time. NCT research found that the most common concerns of women who didn’t see a midwife often enough postnatally were about feeding their babies, a finding that is particularly alarming given the high number of women in the UK who stop breastfeeding before they want to. Women who access good quality community support tell us what a difference it makes and this should be available for all families who need it.”
