Other Oddness

[kiskidee]

I went to our local Surestart breastfeeding group with dd in tow. I was so keen to show off that dd was coming up to a year and still bf.

no other bf mums or any other mums for that matter turned up but hey, this is NE England. the HV (who is also one of the 2 'lactation consultants' for the whole district) and i discussed my early days difficulties.

I explained that the only 'difficulties' I experienced was entirely of my HV's making - telling me that at 2 wks old and me with flu, I had to top baby up with formula b/c she had not regained birthweight. (sent me into floods of tears for 36 hrs till the fab women on MN put me right)

Her response: but didn't she tell you to breastfeed first before topping up?

[NotQuiteCockney]

Oh god, that's depressing. And she's meant to be one of the experts ....

[hunkermunkfish]

Well done to you for having a DD who's nearly one and still bfeeding!

But heavy sigh at the HV

What did you say?

[kiskidee]

dd turned one last Wednesday and celebrated it by pushing her own pushchair down Las Ramblas in Barcelona.

Yes, this is one of experts in my area. I also got all, save ONE, leaflet from hv which were printed by SMA - if only I knew back then that it was illegal, I would have saved them all up and sent them to Baby Milk Action.

I told her that she never needed the formula in the first place.

and went on to say that she was most likely underwt because she was jaundiced and under lights in hospital, no one supported me in our week's stay there and at times I was unsure if I should take her out and feed her or if taking her out from under the lights was a no-no so sometimes, I left her there to cry, thinking it was the best thing. I still feel like crying to this day that I would sit there watching her howl and did not take her out and just feed her which i know now was the best bloody thing to do. (the mws response, give her a dummy which I did almost in vain then I just took her out and fed her after more than a day of this)

my parting shot was to give her the web addresses for kellymom and dr. jack newman amd told her that I found that the best thing I could have done was educate myself about bf.

[Caligula]

God how depressing.

She's a lactation consultant? Where did she get her training?

[kiskidee]

i can't say if she is really a trained up fully lactation consultant but she is one of 2 who are hired by our local Surestart to do the antenatal course on bf and is there to give bf advice. they follow the 'bloomsbury method' but I don't know anything of methods.

[Karmamother]

kiskidee....one of the ways to help a neonate's serum bilirubin fall is to give extra feeds. I can't believe you weren't told that by one of the MWs. Was the phototherapy started by a SCBU nurse or a ward MW?

[Karmamother]

Also, where in the NE are you?

[kiskidee]

phototherapy was started by a ward MW. also had scbu MW come over for 2 days to help out on the postnatal ward because they were v. busy. no one advised me on best way to feed. this is still making me upset.

[kiskidee]

County Durham but delivered in Tyne and Wear

[Karmamother]

Which hospital? Was it the RVI?

[kiskidee]

no, Sunderland Royal.

[Caligula]

I think Surestart need to know that if they're going to employ lactation consultants, then they ought to give them proper training - why can't they work with someone like the NCT or the ABM on this, instead of just relying on the crap old NHS? Let's face it, we've got the numbers to say how successful the NHS is on this. Not too impressive, are they?

[Karmamother]

Don't know much about Sunderland Royal other than I got a cooked breakfast last time I was in there, very rare. Erm, forgive me for making a huuuuge assumption about the women of child-bearing age in Sunderland but I'd hazzard a guess that not a lot BF. Could be why the advice was so piss-poor.

[kiskidee]

from my experience KM, it probably goes some way to explain the bf rates in these parts

[Karmamother]

Its a chicken & egg thing, isn't it? Poor rates of BFing leading to lack of interest from MWs/HVs. Or is it the other way around?
Have you considered writing a letter of complaint? If you'd received better support/advice then your LO might not have needed as much phototherapy as they did. You could say this affected your bonding with your baby. If you do write a letter, address it to the Supervisor of Midwives & cc it to the Chief Exec. That'll get a repsonse, for sure. It may not make you feel better but you never know, it may force them to address the problem.

[fastasleep]

I'd love to be lactation consultant, but you have to actually breastfeed, not just express (exclusively expressed for two)... the really stupid thing about that is that I know more than any lactation consultant I've ever met

the NHS is fecked up

[tiktok]

Please don't give the impresh she is a lactation consultant,....whatever they call them, she certainly isn't that. Sounds like her 'training' has been to sit in on a Bloomsbury workshop, which is a few hours, and to have the HP extra bit, which comprises of a sort of multi-choice questionnaire thing with a discussion/presentation. Whole thing comes to about five hours.

[Karmamother]

FA, yeah, I know. It's a waste of your knowledge & skills. I've considered becoming a BFC through the ABM & I still might do. Reading the BF threads on here gets me fired up to go out & do some good!

[tiktok]

fastasleep - you do not need to have bf to be a lactation consultant. You do have to have bf to be a breastfeeding counsellor.

They're two quite different roles.

[Karmamother]

tiktok, explain the difference between the two please, & why are there 2 types anyway?

[fastasleep]

Whoops sorry tik, thought they were the same thing

but why couldn't I be a BF counsellor? I know all the techniques etc, have read up on latching on etc etc, know what it's meant ot look like sound like and feel like... it just never worked!

[Karmamother]

FA, from reading tiktok's many other posts, it seems it's not as easy as it looks, checking a baby is latched on correctly. Still, I'm sure these things come with experience & that can still be learnt, you understand the mechanics so I think thats half the battle.
BTW, hows it going on your other thread?

[tiktok]

OK - a 'lactation consultant' should have done her International Board of Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLC) exam which leads to this internationally-recognised qualification. At a guess, I would say there are about 50-100 LCs qualified in this way in the UK. Most (not all) are also midwives or health visitors, and some are also breastfeeding counsellors with one of the four vol. orgs in this country. A handful work in private practice as LCs, but the majority of the health professional LCs work as midwives and HVs doing all the things midwives and HVs do, though a few have infant feeding co-ordinator specialisms within the health service.

Anyone can call themselves a lactation consultant, as the term is not protected (though you cannot call yourself an 'IBCLC'). To sit the exam for IBCLC you have to have had very extensive experience academically and practically studying and supporting bf (see \link{http://www.iblce.org/become.htm\here}); several thousand (yes, thousand) hours, documented, of helping mothers if you don't already have a degree in some related field (when the hours are somewhat reduced). You do not have to have breastfed.

To become a breastfeeding counsellor is more of a mother-to-mother pathway. NCT bfcs typically take about 3 hours to train. Other orgs (LLL, ABM, BfN) have slightly different requirements, though I don't think the training is substantially shorter. You have to have breastfed - for NCT training it's six months.

Unless a midwife or health visitor has undergone IBCLC certification, or training with one of the vol orgs to be a bfc, or has had a lot of intensive and extensive post-qualification training, just about any bfc will know more about the social, technical and physiological side of bf (sometimes a lot more), and should be more skilled at the counselling side of it all, too.

There are a lot of short courses available which train women in a short time (typically, about 12 sessions) to be peer supporters/peer counsellors. This is a great way of harnessing keen breastfeeders to offer friendship and support to women in their own communities, but it is not sufficient to really get to resolve difficult long-term challenges, and without more experience, they really are not able to resolve positioning and attachment issues (apart from the more obvious ones).

It's totally understandable that people get confused by all these different qualifications. I got a call recently from a mother who told me she had seen an NCT breastfeeding counsellor who had been unable to help her in any way with her positioning....I was a bit concerned, but it turned out the 'counsellor' was a peer supporter.

[tiktok]

FA - I think you could become a peer supporter. Without direct and happy breastfeeding experience, you would not be able to train as a breastfeeding counsellor (at least not with NCT, and prob not with the others, though I am not sure about this).

[fastasleep]

lol

My thread is going brilliantly karma

men are annoying.