Researcher Julie Smith says support for breastfeeding mothers is investment out of producing commercial milk formula which causes excessive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I'm Bhagyashree Savyasachi from the Canberra Times, and I wanted to talk to you about breastfeeding.
00:05Believe it or not, it's not something all mothers know how to do once they've given birth.
00:10They need someone to teach them, and they need support.
00:14I spoke to a mom, Melissa, from Queanbeyan, just outside of Canberra,
00:18and she told me that she had to pay $500 to a lactation consultant to teach her how to breastfeed her child.
00:25And she says that not everyone can afford this, but it's definitely getting more and more common among new moms in Canberra.
00:32Cases like this are why an ANU researcher is taking a study to the World Health Organization
00:40about breastfeeding being on the decline in Australia and all over the world.
00:44Well, the research that's been done over the last 20, 30 years has highlighted,
00:48firstly, the health savings to the economy, the health cost savings,
00:52and secondly, the importance of the value of the milk that mothers produce when they're breastfeeding.
00:58So in Australia, it's around 30 or 40 million litres a year, worth $5 billion or so, at least.
01:05And what we've learned in the last couple of years is that this also contributes to a reduced carbon footprint of people.
01:14And by breastfeeding, a mother can know that she's saving the planet to a degree,
01:21to the tune of about a quarter of a tonne of greenhouse gas emissions that don't go out there if she's breastfeeding her baby.
01:28But the important thing is that governments have to be in there investing in breastfeeding,
01:34in the supports that women need to do it.
01:36It's not an individual woman's responsibility, it's the responsibility of us, our society.
01:44For more UN videos visit www.un.org