What help did you get with breastfeeding?

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Just been listening to radio womens hour and discussion about availability of Formula in hospitals. I've bf 3 babies but was very grateful with last baby to be offered formula at 4 am on the 2nd night after hours trying to settle crying baby.I was in longer after cs.
I continued bf, muddled through mastitis with an electric pump but no practical help at all from midwife's in the hospital or at home even with severe engorgement/ bleeding nipples/ mastitis or health visitors.
This was in stark contrast to the brilliant bf support I'd received with baby 2 in a different city. In Edinburgh Royal Infirmary they were bf zealots constantly checking and correcting position and latching, literally hands on even helping me hand express. If I hadn't received that support with the 2nd I doubt I'd have continued bf with 2nd or 3rd baby.
So I feel this is vital and wondered how it differs around the country.

I'm in East Yorkshire
DD1- not much support but I hsd a baby who just latched on and fed so they left me to it. i got given a feed chart and they did check my latch when my milk came in and i was really engorged. I did however get really bad cracked nipples as dd would start sucking before she even reached the nipple.
DS1 - loads of support in hospital, especially with different positions as he was a very cranky newborn. I was the only bf on a ward of 4 but they still helped as much as they could. Unfortunately we stopped when he was a few weeks old
DD2 - not a lot of support from mw but great help and advice from a hca. She helped me find a comfortable position and helped me sort my latch out. She was very hands on but that didn't bother me. Still feeding nearly 3 years later
DD4 - they obviously thought i knew what i was doing as i got very little help, then again i didn't ask for it. I could of done with some reassurance with latch as dd was tiny and she struggled to get her mouth around my nipple.
In our area bf rates are low so the mw are supposed to encourage you more, not sure if they did as i knew i would bf anyway

I had my DD at home in Northampton. The midwife was very calm and helpful and her attitude was there's no question you can do this (she then moved away very soon afterwards).

The first day after DD was born, I found it hard to get her interested in feeding and the midwife who visited me that day said I should give her formula soonish, there was no encouragement and reassurance that baby was probably getting something from me. Luckily she was not interested in bottle either at that point, which made me persevere with BF.

Also, La Leche League are very active in the area and once I'd found them, I was onto a winner, they were so helpful - the only ones who were helpful and knowledgeable about what to do when problems occur. I don't know if I'd have carried on bf as long as I did if I hadn't found them, as nobody else seemed able to offer useful advice.

Pettyprudence.....i live just outside Cardiff have you come across any good breastfeeding support groups in your extensive experience?! My ds is 3 months i am EBF would like to meet up with other mums... feeling the need for a bit of support this time round.

I had fantastic support when I had BF trouble after DD was born in Oxford in November 2009. I stayed at the hospital overnight and a couple of times a midwife or maternity care assistant watched me latch on and gave me advice. After I went home, things went downhill and I quickly got sore and started bleeding. I mentioned this to one of the community midwives who visited, and she watched me latch on, gave me advice, then sent a BF support worker round the next day. The problem was that I could latch on while an expert was watching, but lost all confidence when I was on my own! When DD was 5 days old, she became rather listless and started vomiting blood. We were horribly worried and took her to the GP, who referred her to the SCBU. It turned out that there was not that much to worry about - DD had slight jaundice (hence the listlessness) and the blood she was throwing up belonged to me, thanks to my crappy BF-ing! Me and DD were kept in overnight for observation, and I was told to use the call button to summon a midwife every time I needed to BF, so that they could watch me and make sure I was doing it right. I left the next day a little bit more confident. Things gradually improved and I ended up BF-ing until DD was 17 months ... and only stopped because I got pregnant again and I think the milk dried up.

I have to say, though, that I never considered giving up BF-ing. I just kept thinking that other women manage it, so I would too (eventually).

South London, 2008. Hospital staff falling over themselves to help me, I soon realised because no-one else on the ward (around 20 women) was even trying. Daytime help was great; nightime just lack of care in general - surely there's health risks to trying to feed while sitting for four hours in diarrhoea you can't escape from thanks to a drip.

After that I had to travel a lot to access help and it was a full-time job, going an hour or more to get to any clinic or the nearest NCT volunteer (who was quite good but turned out I had thrush). When ds was 2 months old, a wonderful midwife who ran one bf clinic set up one near me, and also referred me to a drop-in consultant (also wonderful), and then I only had to fight a GP who refused to prescribe the drugs she'd told me to get. GP has since left my practice and the other 7 or so are great.

Was shocked to find so little support in the middle of London, tbh, though it's better now. Only one consultant for 3 boroughs, and NCT/LLL/Babywotsit group all being answerphone-only, checking calls once a day or less, and hardly any volunteers (or out of date lists - two had moved away when I tried calling them!)

Was also at Edinburgh RI and had fantastic support. So appreciated it. Don't think I would have gone on to 6 months if it wasn't for that initial support and help, especially in the neonatal with a prem baby!

HV told me after DS2 they were 'worried' about me when I did the PND q'aire after DS1 - this was 2 years later. I think bf ing actually helped me survive becoming a mum and I finally went to a group at 3 months with ds1 when struggling, it was a lifeline. Went back to work and mixed feeding at 7m. Became a peer supporter when DS2 was born and managed exclusive bf by expressing when I went back to work at 7m. Peer support is the most valuable, hopefully backed up by a good MW or similar like ours was.

Hah! Help?
-I was the only woman on ward BFing
-Lactation "expert" gave me advice that contributed to mastitis
-Nurses had no interest in helping with latching on. When they actually managed to get to me if I asked for help, it was a rough grab at my boobs and jam it into DC's mouth.
-On a couple of occasions, was excluded from demonstrations on ward and had to sleep/entertain visitors on/eat over bloody sheets for 36 hours because "you're feeding, we won't disturb you"
-Nearest BF group was an hours drive away (there are 3 large towns within 1/2 hour drive)

I'm in Oxford. There's lots of bf support in the city but in hospital I didn't get that much - everyone seemed keen to just show me the one standard hold, apart from one helpful midwife who showed me the rugby hold which I got on with much better. The hospital does have a fabulous breastfeeding clinic but they don't really seem to tell you about it while you're in, though if you go back later you see lots of women in dressing gowns who have presumably come over from the labour ward!

I got good bf support but had to look for it and ask for it, and it was very frustrating and hard at times.

Long post, sorry.
I'm in the North West. First time mum, one ds. Had appalling support in hospital initially, lots of tutting when I refused formula and made my intentions to bf clear. I had to wait downstairs for 6 hours for a postnatal bed so my initial bf was overseen by lovely head midwife on antenatal and it went great. The old school breastfeeding expert on postnatal stuffed ds's face into my breast and wondered why he then wouldn't take it. Mindyou he wouldn't sleep in a crib either. On the second night in the early hours, a lovely older midwife taught me how to a)co-sleep safely and b) the rugby hold position. Great feeds that night!

Unfortunately on day 3 (when I was due to go home), my milk came in and I was very engorged and ds "woke up" from having pethadine during the birth and cried. A lot. I was waiting for discharge papers when a midwife came round and gave papers to my roommate. I asked her when we'd be going and she said "You're not serious are you? Look at him. He's starving. You might be adamant about breastfeeding and not giving formula but it's not working is it?" I told her she was being unreasonable and I'd heard it can take time-she said "I'm not the one who is starving my baby though am I?" I'd been talking to a bf volunteer who had gone off to find a pump and she came in behind and heard the whole thing,was absolutely disgusted. Dh turned up with car seat and had tears in his eyes when he realised we weren't coming home. This was Wed a.m. Cow midwife then turned up again and was all sweetness and light saying I was doing sooo well(wtf?) and could go home if he fed from the breast by 3pm but I just wanted her gone and the volunteer had a word with her.

He fed, but in the meantime the extra stay had triggered another blood pressure check for for me and unsuprising it was sky high. I was told I'd have to stay and I was so, so upset. By this time shift change had happened and a lovely bunch of midwives had turned up. They put me in a room on my own(best room on the ward!) with an industrial strength medela pump and I pumped and syringe fed and co-slept while ds worked the pethadine out of his system and we sorted out the latch. Refused to have anything to do with the awful midwife. Right up until the Friday lunchtime my previously normal blood pressure was sky high. I resigned myself to staying in at the weekend but by then I was adamant I would not stop bf. At 2pm, miraculously my bp came down to a lovely acceptable level and we were free and home!

Had a few more hiccups on our bf journey and had a fab volunteer consultant come out to see us twice, once diagnosing mastitis which explained a lot! Group was good as well. I made a formal complaint against mw but was disuaded from taking it further. 20 months on and I am still breastfeeding, on course to stop at 2, if ds will ever let me.

Thanks for reading if you got this far, I still get v emotional about it(especially remembering dh's face as he had to walk off without us that day ) Good to hear pettyprudence's experiences-we want more dcs but I will go home to Wales before we try again-I am never having another child at that hospital.

It's hard not to be bitter and emotional, though, HappyTangerine. What is an already difficult time and should be a lovely bonding experience with your DC can be ruined by the attitude of a HCP. I am still v angry about both my post-natal experiences.

I had a similar thing: was kept in for 4 days, after which I insisted I be allowed home (the FF-ing, schoolgirl mum whose baby spent the first night in the SCBU was allowed home before me, simply because I was BFing). Also had a sympathetic neonatal nurse who was covering breaks one night who helped me with the co-sleeping/rugby hold. As soon as I got home, everything improved immediately though

I got zero support with my firstborn. That was in London. Moved away and later had 2 more DCs up north. With my 2nd DC, I asked for, and got very little support. My latching was all wrong, it was hurting so bad. Yet all the post-natal mw said, after having a few seconds of watching me bf, was "It looks fine to me." And hv didn't tell me anything about any bf support groups in my area. In fact, he tried to convince me to take up formula because my baby wasn't growing as much as she "should". Well, wrong. I decided to find a bf counsellor online, she lived a bit out of town from me - about 50 minutes drive. I can't remember exactly why I went for her over someone else but I spoke to her on the phone before arranging an appointment with her and thought she sounded very professional. She also worked for Medela (the breast pump company). I think she charged me 50 quid give or take a few pounds for that session and she basically just came to my place and sat right next to me for an hour, watching me bf, getting me to bf and taught me different positions/holds, she checked my baby's mouth for any tongue-ties (I knew nothing about that so wouldn't know what it would have looked like anyway)... and was basically, very very good. She taught me, in that hour, how to latch on properly, how to bf. And she gave me some Medela nipple shields free of charge though that was because I told her I was considering buying some because mine were all bleeding and sore after struggling for 2 weeks to latch on correctly without much support. She did caution me about using them (they can lessen milk supply, etc.) but gave me them anyway. I never had to ask her to come to my place again as after that, I was bf-ing fine and didn't have latching problems again. I continued to bf for about a year before deciding to stop. And when 3rd DC came along, I already knew how to do it and bf-ed for about 15 months before deciding to stop. I know that some people say I shouldn't have to pay for breastfeeding counselling, but I did what I had to do back then in my circumstances. I look back and still think it was probably one of the best decisions I had ever made. Also, I am currently the only woman in my extended family now who ever breastfed her children. My mum, her sisters, my dad's side, no one breastfed, bar my 2 grandmas, and none of the younger generation have even had kids yet!

I am in Aus and the health service is crash hot on it here - lactation consultant and constant midwife help with it throughout the first week in hospital, home visit from a midwife, GP checked our latch at 4-week checkup and again at appointment for six-week shots, and there's a free daily breastfeeding school. It rotates through five suburbs in the area and you can drop in to any session and get help. Was very well attended - I thought it was brilliant.

When I was in post natal ward I had a breastfeeding consultant who was available but didn't seem to know how to help me. The only problem was that baby was wriggling. I ended up looking up latching techniques on You tube. Later I had problems with breast thrush which noone in the NHS seems to know anything about. Again - google came to the rescue and the World Health Organisation with info. I ended up self medicating. Later when I had problems with too much foremilk, the NCT breastfeeding hotline was a great help. Mixed bag - but the NHS help was useless. The most useful thing I got from the NHS antinatal breastfeeding workshop was the news that breastfeeding is hard and you may need to work at it. At least I was prepared that it might not be easy

Hi everyone, can we please agree that using the euphemism chosen by the industry for their marketing purposes 'Formula' is allowing them to call the shots. It is 'artificial milk' or strictly 'breast milk (or human milk) substitute'. I fed both mine and simply took the attitude TINA but now I realise that the overwhelmingly important thing is that every baby MUST HAVE COLOSTRUM -that 'thin watery first milk' dismissed in all the baby books. In fact that is how the baby's immune system is primed for everything his/her mother's world is likely to throw at it. Farmers move heaven and earth to ensure that newborn lambs and calves get colostrum - their own mothers or taken from another mum - even frozen from last year! They know that without it the chances of surviving and thriving are seriously jeopardised. Yet our precious babes are all too often denied it. Giving them the colostrum doesn't hurt and doesn't lead to mastitis it is a cinch! Babies born in livestock farming families are lucky...

I've never seen colostrum dismissed in any baby book all4u.

I thought it was widely recognised that colostrum was the magic top notch milk.

Good support here in Shropshire.

The hospital runs breastfeeding classes for pregnant women that are very well attended and cover basically everything you could ever want to know. Good support groups available. We had some issues with feeding at the beginning and baby lost too much weight and we were readmitted to hospital but given excellent support in hospital to get feeding established. I had thought they would encourage me to give formula at that stage but it was quite the opposite.

I'm very grateful for the support received.

a) Colostrum is creamy and thick, not thin and watery
b) Farmed animals don't get antibodies through the placenta before birth (we do), so it's more vital for them than us
c) It's basically just more concentrated normal milk (all the same constituents, although in different proportions)

Of course I would advocate feeding it to them, but exclusive and extended breastfeeding itself is more important than the colostrum, so if you're going to make a fuss about it, you should be absolutely obsessed with natural-term nursing!

The help I got with breastfeeding was:

Having to wait 40 hours for a midwife after my daughter's birth. When they came they showed me how to syringe feed as she was having problems, and tried the familiar grab-and shove-method.

Then when we were admitted to hospital because she had lost too much weight, most of the midwives/HCAs were useless. Unwilling or unable to help. One spent a lot of time with us helping her latch, and a couple of others helped me express/cup feed.

I called a lactation consultant from LLL (she came to the hospital) and she was most helpful (showed me biological nurturing, diagnosed her tongue tie, suggested nipple shields as a temporary measure).

Nobody mentioned that they don't develop their last suckling reflex until the 37th week (she was born at 37+0), so she would've got there in the end anyway. I read it in a lactation consultant textbook I bought later.

And the consultant paediatrician was telling me I probably wouldn't have enough milk and trying to force formula on her. Wish he'd seen the 100s of ml I had spare in the ward fridge...

40 hours?

i feel real sad about the lack of support women get from their health visitors, I would love to support breast feeding mams, but i haven't got any on my case load !

I didn't know that about the sucking reflex. DD2 had it when she was born at 35 weeks though (fed without a hitch) - so does it vary, or is it sometimes possible to feed without it?

My 35 weeker took almost 2 weeks to develop a proper sucking reflex and was tube fed until she did. I was told that it starts to develop from week 35 so some at that gestation are OK but some take longer for it to be strong enough to feed.

Maybe lack/immaturity of sucking reflex should be something MWs routinely check? Took 4 days of feeding failure before they suggested my 33 weeker had no sucking reflex.

Hi Eshie
I have sent you a VERY long pm . I discovered that there were 2 groups I haven't attended but as they are in Barry I don't think they count.

Really bioinic? The MWs had tried mine with a bottle and decided she couldn't suck so inserted a tube, all before I even woke up!! I think perhaps there is a happy middle ground between that and your experience....