New research reveals some Irish mums felt unsupported when trying to breastfeed

If you’ve ever tried to establish breastfeeding on a postnatal ward, you’ll know the particular helplessness of pressing a call bell at 3am with a hungry newborn and a latch that isn’t working, waiting for someone — anyone — to come. New research out today suggests that experience is far from isolated, and that many Irish mothers have perceived a healthcare system where breastfeeding support is treated as secondary, inconsistent or simply left to chance.

Preliminary findings from a national study conducted through a collaboration between parent-led advocacy group Bainne Beatha and Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin), funded by the Health Research Board, reveal recurring patterns in how mothers across Ireland have experienced infant feeding support within the healthcare system. The scale of the data alone is striking: MPhil student Abigail Bacon analysed 23,893 comments from 4,695 mothers nationwide.

Formula as the default

What emerged from all of that data was a picture many Irish mothers will recognise. The preliminary analysis suggests that in many healthcare settings, formula feeding was treated as the default rather than one option among several. As one mother put it, hospitals were “understaffed and too busy to help establish/support mothers with breastfeeding” and “formula was very much top pick especially since a trolley comes around everyday with free formula bottles and if you choose to breastfeed you’re pretty much left to fend for yourself.”

It’s worth stressing that the research didn’t find a uniformly negative picture. Many mothers described genuinely positive encounters with healthcare professionals who were “superb” and “very encouraging.” The problem, it seems, isn’t individual goodwill — it’s consistency. Mothers reported receiving conflicting advice, struggling to access timely support, and finding that the quality of care depended heavily on which staff member happened to be on shift.

A system under strain

Deborah Byrne, founder of Bainne Beatha, is careful to point the finger at structures rather than people. “Many mothers described perceiving breastfeeding as insufficiently prioritised within the system due to staffing pressures, inconsistent training, and limited access to timely support,” she said. “Individual healthcare professionals are often doing their best within difficult conditions, but these findings suggest the wider system may not be adequately supporting either staff or families.”

It’s a framing that feels important. The exhausted midwife who couldn’t stop to help isn’t the villain here. The system that left her understaffed and overstretched is.

What needs to change

In its forthcoming pre-budget submission, Bainne Beatha will call for a series of concrete changes, including:

Improved staffing ratios to allow midwives adequate time to provide skilled breastfeeding support
The exploration of new support models, including nighttime healthcare assistants trained to offer basic breastfeeding help outside of IBCLC hours
The development of CPD programmes to help healthcare professionals identify and address potential anti-breastfeeding bias

This isn’t the first time Bainne Beatha has pushed for change with real results. The group’s first national report contributed to a €1.58 million commitment from the Minister for Health to provide IBCLC posts across all maternity units — a significant win that shows what sustained, evidence-based advocacy can achieve.

Further findings from this research will be published in an upcoming academic article. Whatever your own feeding journey looked like, the idea that the support you received might have depended on the luck of the draw — on which ward you were on, which midwife was free, whether the formula trolley came round before anyone checked in on you — is something the Irish healthcare system needs to take seriously.