Would financial rewards encourage mothers to breastfeed their babies?

Abstract

There is a great deal of evidence that breastfeeding is best for babies, and the World Health Organization (2013) recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months. However, breastfeeding rates in the UK remain low. In recent years, initiatives that offer financial incentives to encourage mothers to breastfeed have been proposed and trialled. This article considers breastfeeding promotion schemes and other health-related incentive-based interventions, in an attempt to assess the effectiveness of offering financial incentives to breastfeed and whether this has the potential to increase the prevalence and duration of breastfeeding. There is evidence to suggest that healthy lifestyle changes have been achieved by offering incentives and, while rewards are provided for achievement of a particular goal, they can also act as a reason to both initiate and continue a particular behaviour. If effective, such intervention could lead to an increase in breastfeeding rates and the way in which breastfeeding is perceived by society. More research is needed to establish whether this is a suitable approach to breastfeeding promotion.