Lactamo’s Founder, Etta Watts-Russell was delighted to be invited to join The Today Show hosts @AllisonLangdon and David Campbell this morning for a World Breastfeeding Week special feature, together with Lactation Consultant, Courtney Garland.
Etta Watts-Russell was joining from Mumbai, India (where it wasn’t yet the morning!)
Lactamo’s Australian Breastfeeding Survey
Lactamo had shared the results of its recent breastfeeding survey of Australian Mums with The Today Show. The survey had found:
92% of mums reported negative experiences as part of their breastfeeding journey.
Women listed multiple negative experiences, with other most common answers being “problems with returning to work while breastfeeding” (21%), “issues with breastfeeding in public” (27%), and “feeling negatively judged about how long they breastfed for” (30%).
A whopping 49% got mastitis.
When asked about their negative experiences, mums highlighted:
- “Unprepared for the truth of breastfeeding”
- “Being judged for breastfeeding in public”
- “Excruciating pain in first few weeks.”
- “Low supply and guilt”
- “The health advice to “just persist””
- “I was not prepared and it was very painful and challenging”
- “Opinions about length of time breastfeeding”
- “There’s so much ‘breast is best’ propaganda that when I was struggling was hard to face.”
Interview on The Today Show
“The struggles associated with breastfeeding and the lack of solutions can be extremely disheartening for new mums. In fact a new survey of Australian women has found 92% reported negative experiences as part of their breastfeeding experience.
For more on this we are joined by the Founder of Lactamo Etta Watts-Russell and Lactation Consultant Courtney Garland here in Sydney.
Etta, I’ll go to you first and you’re in India at the moment, tell us why you’re there. But also these figures are very shocking so what do you make of the findings?”
Watch the full interview here.
