More breastfeeding rooms needed: study
Breastfeeding rooms should be required at public sites and workplaces, a study of mothers concluded after finding that a lack of facilities was discouraging women from feeding their babies the natural way.
The Health Department says the Food and Health Bureau will look into providing facilities beyond those that are now available.
The results of the study by Hong Kong Health Link Promotions showed that 279 of the 504 mothers (55.4 per cent) surveyed last month wanted to breastfeed their babies until they were six months old, but only 181 (36 per cent) were able to do so.
The group said private breastfeeding rooms should be provided at public places such as shopping malls, public transport centres and government departments. It also said clean, private places where working mothers could pump their milk for use later should be provided in workplaces.
In the survey, two-thirds blamed the lack of such facilities in the workplace for having made them stop nursing their babies. Nearly a quarter blamed the lack of such facilities in public places.
'The figures clearly tell us we have to provide more breastfeeding rooms for mothers in Hong Kong,' group director Maggie Ng said yesterday.
