How interesting!
Here are some answers from Sweden.

9 okt 2008 kl. 06.00 skrev LACTNET automatic digest system:

> 1. Where are most babies born (hospital? birthing center? home?)
In hospitals.
> 2. Is there standard state or employer-funded maternity leave? How  
> long?
State paid parental leave. The parents get in common 13 months with  
80 % of wages (with a limit for higher incomes). Each of the parents  
has must take leave for at least two months. The rest of the time any  
parent can lake leave. (In many families that means mothers take 11  
months of leave and fathers two, but there is a trend towards more  
fathers on longer paternal leave and mothers going back to work  
earlier.) The parents also have 3 months leave with very low  
compensation (180 SEK a day, around 20 Euro or less than 30USD). You  
can if you want to and the employer thinks it's ok stretch out the  
parental leave by not requiring full compensation.

> 3 Who pays for LC?
Lactation consultation? There is no private one.

> 4 Is there a restriction on formula marketing?
You hardly ever see infant formula (0-6 months) marketing towards  
general public, but marketing "välling" , baby gruel, for older  
babies is allowed as long as it is "founded on facts and  
measured" ("saklig och måttfull" ) acording to the Swedish  
implementwation of the WHO Code, Allmänna råd 1983:2) There are  
restrictions against marketing bottles but this is being done quite a  
lot and a Swedish magazine ad was mentioned in Ibfan's "Breaking the  
rules, Stretching the rules 2007.

> 5. Are there laws protecting breastfeeding in public or pumping at  
> work?
I'm not sure really. A woman reported a restaurant in Stockholm to  
the The Equal Opportunities Ombudsman when she had been shown to the  
(dirty) toilet to breastfeed that she had been discriminated due to  
sex but the restaurant wasn't fond guilty as they stated that they  
were concerned that the baby might hit its head to the table.

> And, of course, any statistics or information that would be  
> interesting.
Latest national statistics with translation into English. Please have  
a look at the statistics over time (they come fist).
http://www.socialstyrelsen.se/NR/rdonlyres/E02AB7BF-6D5A-4553- 
A647-2BA9044B8F16/8835/20074212.pdf

Marit Olanders
editor of bf magazine Amningsnytt, Sweden
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