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 just a bit bitter Peppa :) Although I do think if they're going to have prem babies on the normal post-natal ward they should be a bit more clued-up about associated problems (although I know it was probably an uncommon situation to be in anyway).

Yes, we were on normal post-natal too and now that I think about it, the best support I got was when the special care sister came to visit us (because we were not out as soon as they thought we should have been). I actually got very little support from the normal MWs, except one really good one. The special care staff were EXCELLENT.

yamayama - read this book before baby is born and keep it for ref - What to Expect When You're Breastfeeding...And What If You Can't? by Clare Byam-Cook, really helped me.
In Scotland we have Community Mums, volunteers who ring yu every week for 6 weeks, more if you need to support you and advise you thru bfing, research local bf groups too, but the book is fab. xx

would also like to mention that all the midwives at Wishaw hospital were diamond. great bf support too, tho govt cuts have since put paid to that.

Had lots of support from the Princess Anne in Southampton, offered milk from the milk bank to get dd going when she was newborn and couldn't suckle straight away, midwives sat for ages by the bed helping me to latch on. breastfeeding counsellor visiting in my home- they really couldn't have done more.

I was very lucky, my local hospital is a baby friendly hospital. With DD1 a) there was merconium in my waters (she was late so not that surprising) and b) I had taken pethidine when in labour. She wasn't interested in feeding for a couple of days so the midwives showed me how to hand express and syringe feed. They were very enthusiastic about the fact that I could hand express less than 1ml and although they were very busy came whenever she cried to try and help her latch on properly. On night two they checked her blood sugar and it was low so they recommended she have some formula which they cup fed her and unknown to me they put me top of the list to see the BFing specialist the next morning. She a) attached me to a scary medula breast pump to get about 50ml of collostrum out to cup feed and then DD1 finally latched on. I was then transferred to the local MLU to get another 24 hours of BFing support (it was much quieter in the MLU, I had my own room with en suite facilities and DH could stay, it was fantastic) and the midwife on duty observed every feed DD1 had overnight and then said I could go home. My community midwife visited regularly over the next week and gave me all the details of the local BFing groups. I started going regularly to one of the groups, which was run by the BFing specialist and the woman who ran the NCT antenatal classes I'd been at which was lovely.

I had no more problems with DD1 until she was about 10 weeks old when I got mastitis in one breast and then the other. My milk supply dropped and DD1 lost some weight. The HV at the drop-in centre was concerned and wanted to monitor her (she didn't believe mastitis caused a drop in milk) but the BFing group was fantastic support and they pointed out that a) DD1 was blooming enormous considering how small DH and I was and b) she had started rolling over and was clearly very alert and happy so there was no need to worry. They also suggested some ways that I could get more milk into her if I was concerned (waking to feed in the night since she was sleeping through and having a babymoon, the second one helped tremendously to up my supply again).

Because I had been concerned about DD1's weight I considered weaning her at four months but they encouraged me to wait until she was 6 months and recommended I read up about BLW. It was great advice because she started piling on the weight again after we had a babymoon which gave me masses of confidence in my BFing and BLW was fantastic for us. DD1 ended up being BF for 15 months.

When DD2 was born she fed no problem but had a terrible latch to begin with and I ended up with mastitis when she was a week old. If I hadn't had a successful BFing relationship with DD1 I might well have given up at that point but I a) knew it didn't have to hurt b) had the knowledge to improve her latch and c) knew the short term pain was worth fighting through for the long term relationship. By the time she was 2 weeks old her latch was sorted and we've had no problems since. So, because of the fantastic support I got, I've got two children who were EBF for 6 months and both BF for over a year.

This is a long post but it does show how good support can make all the difference at various ages. One of the people in my NCT class lived across the county border and had similar problems post birth but didn't get the support I got and ended up bottle feeding when her LO was just a day or so old and she felt terrible about it when it was really just the luck of the draw that I got the good support and she didn't. Our situations could so easily have been reversed.

I got great support from my midwife and health visitor when my dd couldn't latch on for the first few weeks. They continued to give me congratulations and encouragement when I followed their exhortations to "feed on demand" for "up to two years - look at all these benefits for you and the baby!"

So I did; then I ended up with a 2-year old who was addicted to the boob (still is!) and when I asked the HV for help in weaning her off, she just said "oh, just drop one feed a day" - great, except that by feeding on demand we didn't, of course, have 3-4 set feeds a day, more like 20-30 micro-feeds!!

I was pretty clueless about breastfeeding - I thought it would just 'happen'. My milk hadn't come in straight away and I was actually told that if I didn't start feeding my baby soon, there was a chance he would be brain damaged. This was followed by a delightful nurse pinching and tweaking my nipples before leaving me on a breast pump for an hour and a half, resulting in absolutely no milk and really sore nipples. Horrendous.