Bloody fantastic, if you pardon the swearing!
There was a presentation on Cleft lip/palate which went in to detail about how support is given to a family from the first diagnosis at the 20w scan all the way through to 20y! Also, told us that bfing is possible with a cleft lip in a lot of cases though positioning may have to be changed depending on which side the cleft is (feeding cleft side up to facilitate breathing).
A mother did a presentation on bfing's unique benefits to a baby with Down Syndrome (aids hypotonia, digestive issues, heart problems, lowered immune system to name a few) and spoke about how to support a family in bfing their baby with Down Syndrome.
Wendy Jones gave a presentation on bfing and medications. She gave us lots of information about how medication can get into breastmilk and how medication cannot (if it is a high protein binding med it's less available to get into bm/if it has low bio-availability [i.e. can it be taken orally or injected only], etc) and how the helpline supports mothers to make up their own minds on whether they want to take the medication or wean.
She told us about a survey that was done on mothers calling the helpline and 98% chose to bf and take the meds after given the information and 2% (8 women IIRC) chose to not take the medication given the possible side effects. Not one woman weaned!
Wendy Jones has decided to launch a new website www.breastfeeding-and-medication.co.uk/ which is under construction at the moment but will be a portal for advice for mothers & HCP.
There was a presentation on TT which was really fascinating and went in to lots of detail on how to identify and support mothers with a baby with TT (but not diagnose of course) and how to refer them to a TT clinic for diagnosis/cutting. Not all TTs need cutting and how two babies can have similar TT but one can bf fairly easily but one can't at all so you can't judge the effects on bfing by looking at the baby you have to wait and see what the effects might be (though the earlier the referral the better).
The last presentation was on premature babies and it was quite heart breaking to see the pictures of such small babies and to hear how the mother's struggled (often against medical professionals) to bf their babies.
It was a really great day 