By Richard Suchet, Sky News Reporter
Mothers should be encouraged to breastfeed their babies for up to 18 months in order to save the NHS more than £40m a year, according to a study.
Research published by the British Medical Journal suggests £31m could be saved by doubling the number of mums who breastfeed for between seven and 18 months as it would reduce their risk of breast cancer, which is costly to treat.
Another £11m could be saved if women who exclusively breastfeed for one week can be encouraged to keep going for four months, because it would help to cut the incidence of common childhood diseases.
Rosie Dodds, senior policy advisor at the parenting charity NCT, said: "Enabling women who want to breastfeed to continue for longer would cost the NHS £40m less because they would need to treat fewer illnesses in babies and less breast cancer, which means they can really invest in supporting breastfeeding.
"We know that most women want to breastfeed and around 80% start.
"But 80% of those who stop in the first six weeks would have liked to carry on for longer and it's those women who we need to provide more support for.
"We know in post-natal care there are not enough midwives available and although support for breastfeeding has improved in some places, there is so much more that could be done in providing support at the right time and with the right information so that parents can carry on as long as they want to."
The report claims the NHS could realise the savings without persuading more women to breastfeed.
Rather, it hinges on helping those who have already chosen to do so to extend the overall duration of breastfeeding.
But new mum Jennie Galbraith from North London said the prospect of breastfeeding her daughter Alice for 18 months was daunting.
She told Sky News: "That would mean I'd still be breastfeeding when I went back to work.
"It would mean expressing at work, storing milk at work, and other things that I think most workplaces aren't really geared up for.
"I think there would be a lot of stigma around me doing that.
"And even if I had chosen to be a stay-at-home mum and wasn't going to work, I think the tie of needing to be with your child every two to four hours for 18 months would be a lot."
Roberta Robino, mum to three-week-old Emilia, said: "It's the judgement from others that would scare me most - more than the thought of just breastfeeding my child for 18 months."
Providing accessible, high quality support to women that would help them breastfeed for longer will be costly but the research indicates that the investment has a "strong economic case".
But maternity nurse Lisa Clegg believes the report is unhelpful.
She said: "It's a pressured time anyway and stressful and emotional when the baby is born, and you want to do everything right.
"You don't need someone coming along to you and saying 'you must do it for this long'. As a mum we do everything the best we can anyway."
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