HEREFORD'S MP Paul Keetch has been asked to help save a breastfeeding project which has been gaining ground in the southWye area of the city.

The plea for support has come from Laura McCarthy, tutor of psychology at Hereford Sixth Form College, who said the pilot project's future was uncertain, with funding unlikely to continue after March.

She told the MP it was "quite extraordinary and entirely incomprehensible" that such a project could not carry on.

Frances Howie, Herefordshire Primary Care Trust (PCT) director of public health, confirmed the project was under scrutiny and that a working party would report its findings in January.

They would be looking at ways of incorporating the best parts of what was a pilot scheme in south Wye into the mainstream maternity services.

The Herefordshire Breastfeeding Project is financed by Herefordshire Council and administered by the PCT.

The money came from a "reward grant"

from the government after the council reached certain targets and was used to pilot a 12-month scheme to encourage women, particularly young or teenage mothers, to breastfeed their babies.

Part of the scheme has been to train volunteer peer support counsellors, who have successfully breastfed their own babies and were now keen to help others.

Mrs Howie said the PCT very much valued the important work that had been going on and recognised the value in supporting women to breastfeed.

On balance, she said it had been a very good thing and was committed to finding a way of getting the work continued.

In her letter to the MP, Ms McCarthy said the results in south Wye had been impressive with an increase in breastfeeding rates in the target groups.

The benefits of breastfeeding were many and varied, including the bonding between mother and child, she added.