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Dear Colleague

Infant Feeding Strategy for Scotland - consultation document

During the last decade, there have been concerted efforts by a wide range of agencies and individuals in Scotland to raise awareness of the importance of breastfeeding and appropriate infant feeding, and to increase successful uptake. There have been some notable successes, including:

• In 1996 only one NHS Board in Scotland had a breastfeeding strategy, in 2005 only one did not.
• In 1993 there were four breastfeeding support groups - there were 150 in 2005.
• In 1994 there was only one peer support programme, increasing to 11 by 2005.
• 58% of Scottish babies are now born in a UNICEFUK Baby Friendly Initiative accredited hospital. This compares with 34% in Wales and Northern Ireland and 9% in England.
• The University of Paisley Midwifery Directorate has become the first teaching department to receive a UNICEF Baby Friendly award.
• The Breastfeeding (Scotland) Act of 1995, supported by the Scottish Executive, sets out in legislation the importance of breastfeeding support in encouraging women.
• Scotland continues to participate in the UK Infant Feeding Survey (questions are currently being set for the 2006 version) and has the highest involvement rate throughout the process so far of all UK countries.

These facts are significant but the view has long been held that a national framework needs to be in place to ensure that this important public health issue receives the attention that it deserves. Members of the expert group, the Scottish Breastfeeding Group, have been working with the Scottish Executive over a long period to help shape our thinking, and their views and comments inform the attached draft strategy.

The draft Strategy is being published today for a three month consultation. We would welcome your views on the draft, and in particular, your response to the specific questions that have been identified in the document. All comments received will be analysed and the final document will be revised before issuing in final form.

We are inviting written responses to this consultation paper by 30 June 2006, to the Child and Maternal Health Unit at the above address in hard copy, or by email to childandmaternalhealth@scotland.gsi.gov.uk. We would be grateful if you could clearly indicate in your response which questions or parts of the consultation paper you are responding to as this will aid our analysis of the responses received.

We ask that you complete and return the "Respondee Information Form" with your response to help ensure that we deal with it appropriately. We will make all responses available to the public in the Scottish Executive Library by the end of July 2006, unless confidentiality is requested. All responses not marked confidential will be checked for any potentially defamatory material before being logged in the library.

The draft Strategy is being published electronically on the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Health Service ( SHOW) websites. This consultation, and all other SE consultation exercises, can be viewed online at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations. You can telephone Freephone 0800 77 1234 to find out where your nearest public internet access point is.

The Scottish Executive now has an email alert system for Scottish Executive consultations (SEconsult) - http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Consultations/seConsult). This system allows stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new Scottish Executive consultations (including web links). SEconsult complements, but in no way replaces Scottish Executive distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders to keep up to date with all Scottish Executive consultation activity, and therefore be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We would encourage you to register.

If you have any queries about this consultation, please contact Laura Stewart in the Child and Maternal Health Unit on 0131 244 2533. Please also contact Laura if you require the text of this consultation paper to be made available in an alternative format or language. We will try to accommodate your needs.

We look forward to receiving your views.

Yours sincerely

Dr Rosie Ilett
Head, Child and Maternal Health Unit

RESPONDEE INFORMATION FORM

Consultation title: Infant Feeding Strategy for Scotland

Please complete the details below and attach it with your response. This will help ensure we handle your response appropriately:

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