I just wanted to say how wonderful they have been with me.
bf with dd1 was a complete disaster with her failing to thrive, we with incredibly painful nipples and eventually an abcess. She ended up on formula. I felt I had had no support whatsoever, quite the opposite in fact. DD1 ended up being ff because no milk came through despite my best attempts.
When dd2 was born the first day looked hopeful as she showed much more interest in the breast than dd1 ever did. It then started to go wrong, her struggling to latch, when she did latch she would pull away and scream as she wasn't getting what she wanted. After tongue tie was diagnosed and snipped I thought things would improve but they didn't. DD2 was finally discharged from hospital (after significant weight loss) on formula.
When I got home I decided I didn't want to ff and contacted the bfn in desperation. They have helped and given moral support to get latch established, and helped me get through the first few days of expressing 2 hourly to help stimulate supply.
DD2 is now 6 weeks old, is gaining weight and is bf, I could cry.
BTW DH has been pretty good too on the moral support side but not so much on the expertise.
So I would say if any one wants support it's worth asking for it, I have really noticed the difference. I suspect that bf would never have worked with dd1 as she wasn't interested from the beginning and I was physically pretty ill but if I had had the support I have had this time I would have felt so much better about it.