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RESEARCH: Summer Sherburne Hawkins, Kate Lamb, Tim J Cole, Catherine Law the Millennium Cohort Study Child Health Group Influence of moving to the UK on maternal health behaviours: prospective cohort study BMJ 2008; 336: 1052-1055 [Abstract] [Full text]

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Is it legal doctor?

Jean P Fisher   (16 May 2008)

Is it legal doctor? 16 May 2008
Jean P Fisher, GP to the socially excluded Whitehouse Centre, Huddersfield, HD1 5JU Send response to journal: Re: Is it legal doctor?	Many of my patients are recent migrants from Africa, where breastfeeding rather than bottle feeding of babies is the norm. Yet new mothers attending my surgery often do so with a bottle tucked into the pram next to the baby. When I stopped to wonder why, the answer was given to me by a patient. She gave it as a question rather than as an answer. "but is it legal to breastfeed in this country doctor?" It is so rare to see breastfeeding mothers in the UK, that many of my African ladies assume it is not allowed. Some say they breast feed at home but bottle feed outside the house as they want to appear to "fit in" to UK culture. What a shame that in multicultural Britain it is still so hard to hold on to the best bits of one's own culture. I tell my patients that they must teach their UK peers the value and simplicity of breast feeding, but we both know how difficult this is to achieve. Competing interests: None declared