The breastfeeding rates in Ireland are pretty crap. We just don’t have a breastfeeding culture at the moment, and there’s nothing harder to change than culture. The only thing to do, as a nursing mother, is get out there and nurse, and talk about it, and let people see you doing it.

Admittedly, I didn’t exactly hang out with new mothers when I lived in Dublin last, being more of the young-free-and-single set, but I really only remember twice ever seeing someone nursing: once when I was about 8 and my friend’s mother came to lunch with her new baby; and then the mother of the kids I babysat, but she was Dutch, and therefore Doesn’t Count.

Anyway, the breastfeeding PR people are fighting a losing battle against the Irish psyche. We will not do anything The Man tells us to, for The Man represents 700 years of English Oppression, even when The Man is a nice hippie lady who just wants what’s best for your baby. We don’t like hippies much either. So the more the BF lobby tell the Irish populace how much they really ought to breastfeed, the more the Irish populace say “No, it’s time to think about *me* after these hard 9 months of pregnancy, and I’m going to give myself a break and bottle feed. It’s all the same to the baby, give or take.” At least, I imagine that’s perhaps the thought process.

So if you can’t browbeat the Irish into doing the right thing, how do you appeal to them? To their innate laziness, of course. To their desire to save a bob or two. To their love of the easy life. This is my plan for an ad campaign:

• Big picture of boobs (somehow covered, for modesty). Caption: Convenience Store, open all hours.
• Big picture of boobs. Caption: Piggybank. Small print: [Some statistic about how much you would save on formula if you breastfed for 6 months.]
• Big picture of boobs. Caption: Sterilizer. Small print: [Statistic about how much time it takes to sterilize the bottles versus opening your shirt.]
• Big picture of boobs. Caption: The gym. Small print: Breastfeeding is nature’s way of losing the baby weight. And you don’t have to lift a finger. (Disclaimer about how it doesn’t work for everyone.)
• Big picture of boobs. Caption: Cancer protection. Small print: [statistics about how women who breastfeed are less likely to get breast cancer] 

You get the idea. I’m sure I’ll come up with some more.