Evaluating the effects of financial incentives to support first-time young mothers to breastfeed

Women aged less than 20 years are less likely to initiate and sustain breastfeeding until their baby is 6 weeks and older compared with older mothers, according to the Infant Feeding Survey (McAndrew et al, 2010). The ‘vouchers for breastfeeding’ scheme, which was trialled in 2015–2016 with more than 10 000 women in parts of Yorkshire and Derbyshire, offered mothers shopping vouchers worth up to £200 if they provided breast milk to their baby up to the age of 6 months. Over the period of this large-scale scheme, a parallel small-scale intervention was commissioned and offered by a family nurse partnership (FNP) to first-time young mothers in an adjacent area. This article reports on the evaluation of the initiative within the local FNP service. The results indicate that the scheme was acceptable and deliverable within this setting.