Abstract
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Highlights
IntroductionEven though many Australians support breastfeeding and recognise it as the best food for infants [14], from 2011 to 2012, the proportion of infants exclusively breastfed for the first six months was only 17.6% of all children older than six months [3]
Australia has a poor breastfeeding culture [14]
Assuming that the average economic cost of the time spent on exclusive breastfeeding in Australia is around 17 hours per week [14], each breastfeeding mother would require approximately 408 hours per six months
Summary
Even though many Australians support breastfeeding and recognise it as the best food for infants [14], from 2011 to 2012, the proportion of infants exclusively breastfed for the first six months was only 17.6% of all children older than six months [3]. The percentage of infants exclusively breastfed during the first half year of life was less than one-fifth of the percentage of breastfeeding initiation (92.3%) from 2011 to 2012 [3]. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [5] reported 75% for breastfeeding initiation and 15% for exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of life. The Australian Government provides paid parental leave to support exclusive breastfeeding, the phenomenon of premature weaning still occurs. This paper will discuss the reasons that the government should prolong the duration of the paid parental leave scheme
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