Are mothers with eating disorders less likely to breastfeed?
Ed Juszczak with Alan Stein and Sandra Cooper (Oxford)
There have been no large studies of eating disorders in the postnatal period. This issue is important because of the association of eating disorders with adverse child development and the possibility that women with eating disorders are reluctant to breast feed. In a survey of mothers attending postnatal clinics, 1385 (55%) responded, and 62 (4.7%) were identified as suffering from an eating disorder. We also found that eating psychopathology had a strong negative effect on the likelihood of breast-feeding.
We found that mothers' choices about whether or not to breast-feed their infants are influenced by attitudes to their body shape and weight. This finding is especially relevant in the light of the lack of success of major national campaigns to improve breast-feeding uptake, and the enormous societal and media pressure on young women to be thin and to fulfil particular stereotypes about body shape. The issue of the low rates of breast-feeding in the UK has also been highlighted by the United Nations Committee on Child Rights. They recently urged Britain to adopt the International Code for Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes because of the low rate of breast-feeding in the UK.
We found that eating disorders in the postnatal period are relatively common. This is of concern because these disorders are almost entirely hidden, and have been shown to influence interpersonal functioning and the infant’s development.
These findings are important and original and, if replicated, indicate an area for significant public health concern.
