Irish mothers are more at-ease breastfeeding in front of strangers than their own family, a new study has found.
The study asked more than 14,000 Irish, Australian and Swedish mothers how comfortable they felt breastfeeding in public.
Irish women said they were more comfortable doing so near strangers rather than their own father-in-law.
The research also found that more mothers in Sweden and Australia regularly saw breastfeeding in public, as opposed to Irish women who rarely saw another person breastfeeding.
Trinity College Dublin Assistant Professor in Midwifery Dr Louise Gallagher told Newstalk Breakfast there is a lack of women seeing other mother's breastfeeding in Ireland.
"Despite the fact that the rate of breastfeeding starting off for women is in the 60% [threshold] in Ireland, and it's well over 90% in both Australia and Sweden, we found very similar levels of comfort among women in those three countries," she said.
"The one thing we did find with Ireland is that Irish women were less likely to see other mother's breastfeeding in public.
"I suppose that's not surprising given that there were fewer mothers breastfeeding.
"That can be important because when people do see other people breastfeeding in public it can normalise it.
"In fact about 50% of the breastfeeding mothers in Ireland said that they rarely saw another woman breastfeeding in public".
Dr Gallagher said women who want to breastfeed need to be supported to continue the practice outside of hospital settings.
She said that while 60% of women plan to breastfeed, many discontinue or start to introduce formula by the time they are leaving hospital.
'Level of discomfort'
Dr Gallagher said it is not known how uncomfortable other family members may feel around breastfeeding.
"What we found is that generally women feel very comfortable breastfeeding in public, but they do have some level of discomfort when breastfeeding in front of some family members," she said.
"We found that among women in all three countries they felt less comfortable breastfeeding when that was in front of their father-in-law than for example a member of the public.
"The one thing we don't know is whether or not that degree of discomfort is also felt by the father-in-law or by the family member.
"That's something that we need to unpick a little bit because at the moment we don't have any data pertaining to how family members might feel about breastfeeding," she added.
In 2021, the HSE estimated that 59% of babies in Ireland were being breastfed - an increase from 54% in 2019.
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