NICE guidelines recommend peer supporters meet with mums antenatally and within 48 hours after birth.

[RubyBuckleberry]

click on the link - commissioning guide

Is this happening anywhere? Should it happen? What do people think? Is it necessary for people to set up private peer supporting/counselling enterprises like this one although it was commissioned by sure start? because the PCTs seem to be being so slooowwww about this and women everywhere could do with a 'knowledgeable friend' to help them through the first weeks...

I have read/heard some BFing counsellors say that this is a 'scary' prospect because breastfeeding peer counsellors are not trained enough, being only trained for 12 weeks. Do people think this is true? 12 weeks is quite alot to learn all about breastfeeding I would have thought, and most HVs only do a 3 day UNICEF course in breastfeeding management.

Any thoughts?

tia

NQC I'm alwasy hearing about Tower Hamlets being forward thinking about things like this. I'm a secondary school teacher and I always wondered about working for them as they are very progressive in their uptake of new projects etc.

I also really feel that women need support, at home, in the early days. If you look at the infant feeding survey over 70% of women start breastfeeding and around 40% of those have stopped in the first two weeks .

Seems like a total no-brainer to me. Peer supporters sound like they are fantastic value for money from what TruthSweet says, really helpful and in the know enough to refer serious problems on to a more experienced lactation consultant/breastfeeding counsellor.

I hope PCTs take on NICEs guidelines soon...

TH has the Breastfeeding Project - those are the women I meant when I said 'breastfeeding folk'. I think they're all trained to BfN helper level. They go on the ward, and they do home visits as well. Any mum who gives birth in Tower Hamlets has the right to a home visit from a breastfeeding helper.

If it's a first baby, and the birth happens in the hospital, then they get a call from the breastfeeding project, offering a visit. I think the project is funded by the PCT.

NQC - In our group there has been whispers of BFPS who haven't been to any updates since training yet still claim to be BFPS and have been heard of to be offering guidance to mums in a renegade BFPS stylee .

I think BFPS should be a bit like Corgi gas technicians and have to be registered and kept up to date and have ID badges with expiration dates on. There is no point doing your training only to never keep in contact with the group who trained you and go off half cocked at mums with years out of date information. That really gets my goat

Ah, in our area BFPS (and BFCs) are all BfN. Which means they are supervised, and their ID badges have expiry dates, exactly as you say. BFPSes are meant to attend supervision every month, which includes some training elements. BFCs have to do two training days per year, or equivalent.

We're LLL trained. BfN model sounds good.

Does LLL not do supervision?

I've been told that LLL training is v reflective, you're meant to work from your experience in lots of areas, which sounds good in a way, but less good if you've not experienced a particular problem. Is it really like that?

(I prefer not to actually say what training I've had, as if I post on here and give BF advice, well, I do it as me, not as an official spokesperson for any particular BF group. On the advice of my supervisor.)

I've been to 2 meetings LLL in my own time and both of those were before I had trained as a BFPS.

I don't feel I am a representative of LLL as I feel an affinity/loyalty to the group I belong to first and foremost (plus with out seeming big headed most of the LLL course I knew before hand - got to love OCD with an obsession for finding out info on BFing ). That's not to say LLL is in any way bad/inferior/whatever just that our group is my bfing home.

LLL provides the materials and our BFing HV does the actual training and runs the updates and the child protection stuff.

I don't think the course in and of it's self is very reflective as while while we kind of de-briefed about what we had personally experienced we were encouraged to look beyond what worked for us/happened to us.

I would also, say we as a group would look in askance at one of our BFPS who was giving out information that was contra to training because it worked in her experience. For instance, I wouldn't tell a mum it was ok to bottle feed for first 2 months because she can then switch to bfing because I did. Now that would be really stoopid and would lead to me being taken outside and smacked!

We do have BFPS that have more experience in one set of circs. or another. So if there is a mum who is experiencing a problem with feeding after a tongue tie then if 'Sue', who has done this, is around then 'Sue' would talk things through with the mum with another BFPS in attendance so they can get experience in it too.

Oh, no, I didn't think BFPS from any organisation were encouraged to give non-evidence-based information! I can see how you got that from my post, but it's totally not what I meant!

I know the BfN has a mum relatively locally who's fed a baby with DS, and of course her competance is called upon when relevant, so yeah, other organisations do that too.

mmm, I'mm slightly worried now ...
I'm due to do a peer supporter course (6 weeks ) in January. I don't think it is externally afiliated though as the organiser just said it was the NHS one.

Do individual hospitals use training from just one organisation ie. either Bfn or LLL? I just wonder if my course will be as good as those other ones?

hi crikey

hmmm difficult - obviously you won't learn as much as a 12/14 week course - although how many hours is it? but it is still a start... jack newman new virtually nothing about breastfeeding when he starting helping women and now look

hi there RubyB

It's two hours a week and you only have to do 5/6 of the sessions to 'pass'.

I guess it's a start...I'm going to see how I get on with it and then consider doing the bfc training.

good plan