North Lanarkshire’s gold accredited Breastfeeding Friendly

Summary

North Lanarkshire Council is the first local authority in Scotland to be recognised for its comprehensive and sustained efforts to support and increase breastfeeding. The council achieved gold status in the first-ever Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland Local Authority Award, recognising its commitment to supporting breastfeeding in the workplace and wider community. 

Driven by health and inequality challenges, North Lanarkshire recorded one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in Scotland. Supporting families to have improved outcomes from birth was its driving force, and the benefits from breastfeeding play a significant impact on longer-term health and wellbeing and wider opportunities.

Background

Figures recorded outlined the challenge we, as a council, faced. Scottish Government statistics showed that the Scottish average drop-off rate for breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks in 2016/17 was 40.8%, with North Lanarkshire showing the second lowest rate (of all 32 local authority areas) at 21.5%.

Breastfeeding is one of the most effective ways to reduce inequalities among infants and ensure child health and survival. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that breastfeeding mothers exclusively breastfeed their babies for up to 6 months. Thereafter, breastfeeding should continue alongside the introduction of appropriate solid foods, for up to two years of age or for as long as the mother chooses (complementary feeding).

The challenges we faced included changing a culture where breastfeeding is not seen as the norm, addressing low rates of breastfeeding and making North Lanarkshire a more welcoming and supportive place to breastfeed. 

Action taken

A range of partners and stakeholders were involved to support the delivery of changes that would impact positively on culture and practice, promoting long-term breastfeeding. These included: NHS Lanarkshire, local businesses and employers, new mums, council employees, nursery and school children, young people, community groups, local residents and other council partners.

The changes implemented included:

• Improving employer support through the introduction of a corporate breastfeeding policy with workplaces set up for women to continue to breastfeed/express in a private room if required, with refrigeration facilities when returning to work. 
• Establishing nine community breastfeeding champions of mixed gender, working with health colleagues in communities to promote and support breastfeeding. 
• All early years establishments achieving the Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland Early Learning and Childcare award, and 86% of all school establishments achieving the Breastfeeding Friendly Schools award. This includes NHS breastfeeding awareness training, embedding breastfeeding in the curriculum and play environments in nurseries and early years, promoting an environment where breastfeeding is seen as the biological norm for feeding infants and young children. 
• All new council buildings, including community hubs, having breastfeeding facilities designed at the planning stage.
• Libraries, leisure and sport facilities providing a warm welcome and on-site breastfeeding spaces and facilities.  

A wide range of council services incorporated breastfeeding into their delivery to positively impact culture and practice in a way that promotes long-term progress in breastfeeding. 

Results and testimonials

The results have been significant and extremely positive.

North Lanarkshire exceeded its breastfeeding improvement targets for 2024/25, achieving an initiation rate of 53.3%, representing an increase of 2.6 percentage points from last year and 9.6 points since 2016/17. This progress reflects the effectiveness of our whole-systems approach, incorporating UNICEF Baby Friendly Standards and Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland initiatives.

Notably, attrition rates have halved since 2016/17, and local data indicate sustained improvement into 2025/26. These achievements, delivered despite complex social determinants, demonstrate the commitment and collaborative effort of staff and partners across North Lanarkshire.

Case studies include new mum Kerry, who attended a local breastfeeding group in August 2025. Kerry talked about being the first person in her family to breastfeed and how supported she felt both by her family and in the local community. She encourages more mums to breastfeed.

Siobhan, a member of council staff, on her return to work, wanted to continue to breastfeed. Siobhan was able to do this while working, and the council’s breastfeeding policy was in place to support her decision. She speaks positively about her return to work experience.  June 24 (video) 

Insights

Our work to embed the Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland Local Authority Framework generated several important insights, including:

• Creating a cross-service Implementation and Monitoring Group at the outset. This was integral to maintaining momentum and involved key services and partners, ensuring shared responsibility and helping avoid delays during evidence gathering.
• Early engagement with internal services not traditionally associated with breastfeeding support, such as procurement, roads and fleet, and reducing barriers later in the process.
• Conducting an early audit of buildings, including schools, community and leisure services, allowing us to identify suitable spaces for breastfeeding, expressing and storing milk.
• Breastfeeding awareness training, which highlighted the need for clear, sustainable training and plans for key staff groups.
• Coordinated communications, agreeing on consistent messaging, aligned with national BFS guidance.
• Consistent use of the national Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland branding across all public-facing premises.
• Strengthening systems of evidence collection covering staff training uptake, BFS signage and experiences of staff returning from maternity leave. 

Next steps

It’s important we maintain the momentum of the actions delivered with the rollout of additional breastfeeding facilities, education, support and publicising the success stories. However, it is also important to ensure the work being done is effective. We can evaluate the rollouts’ success in a number of ways, including:

• The increase in the level of new mums breastfeeding,
• New mums breastfeeding for longer,
• Number of premises/businesses signing up and achieving breastfeeding friendly status,
• Examining opinions/changes in behaviour and experiences of breastfeeding, and
• Longer term improvements in health statistics.

One of the five priorities in the plan for North Lanarkshire is a shared ambition to improve the health and wellbeing of our communities. A key aspect to achieving this is through empowering people to make healthier choices. 

Breastfeeding is a perfect example of how making positive choices for children from birth can have far-reaching and positive impacts on the culture and practice not only in the council but also lead to progressive change and have a lasting legacy throughout North Lanarkshire.