Breast feeding - The Herefordshire Partnership

Breast feeding

Breast feeding has been positively linked with a range of health benefits to the child.  Teenage mothers and women living in areas of deprivation are less likely to breast feed than women generally.  Herefordshire PCT is therefore targeting additional support to these two groups of women; the effectiveness of this will be measured by two indicators after firstly looking at overall levels of breast feeding in the county.

Chart 1.  Percentage of babies born to mothers residing in Herefordshire who are breast-feeding at 6 weeks of age

Source: Herefordshire PCT

In 2007-08, 37% of Herefordshire's mothers were still breastfeeding their babies at six weeks of age.  This figure has fallen from last year and the peak, 48%, in 2005-06.   The target set for 2007-08, 43% has not been achieved.

Rates are lower for the two target groups, teenage mothers and mothers living in the South Wye area of Hereford City.



This indicator forms part of Herefordshire Council’s Local Public Service Agreement (LPSA 2G 2004-05 to 2007-08 – for more information see reference section 30).  The target is to increase the proportion of babies born to teenage mothers who are breast feeding at 6 weeks of age to 30% in 2007-08, from the 2003-04 baseline of 15%.

Chart 2. Percentage of babies born to teenage mothers who are breast feeding at 6 weeks of age

Source: Herefordshire PCT

In 2007-08, 15% of teenage mothers were still breast feeding their babies at six weeks of age, slightly up from last year, 13%, but failing to repeat the improvement on the baseline seen in 2004-05.  This is well short of the target of 30% set for 2007-08 and well below the proportion for mothers overall in Herefordshire, 37%.



This indicator also forms part of Herefordshire Council’s Local Public Service Agreement (LPSA2G 2004-05 to 2007-08 – for more information see reference section 30).  The target is to increase to 40% by 2007-08 the proportion of babies born to mothers residing in the South Wye area who are breast feeding at 6 weeks of age, from the 2003-04 baseline of 25%.

Chart 3. Percentage of babies born to mothers residing in the South Wye area who are breast feeding at 6 weeks of age

Source: Herefordshire PCT     

In 2007-08, 31% of mothers living in the South Wye area of Herefordshire were still breast feeding their babies at six weeks of age.  This figure was lower than last year, 34% and below the peak of 41% in 2005-06.

The 2007-08 figure was short of the target to have 40% of mothers in South Wye breast feeding their babies at six weeks of age.  This is also lower than the proportion for all Herefordshire mothers overall that were breast feeding at six weeks of age.