Breast feeding support workers ???

[Dewar23]

Did anyone receive a visit from a breast feeding support worker and if so what did you think?

No I didn't - it wasn't offered. Although I did go to a breastfeeding support group. Unfortunately I found it pretty useless and didn't go back. Although I don't think this is representative of the vast majority of support groups.

What's happened? Do you know what level of training she had?

I did, the day after i got home from hospital and again the following week once dd had tongue tie corrected.

Thought the visits were extremely beneficial. Helped with latch, gave me lots of Information and showed me pictures of latches etc. And invited me to local baby cafe (bf support group) the following week, which was nice as it's always awkward walking in to a room full of new people but she came up to me the moment I walked in and got me a cup of tea

Oh your not in the North West are you, some area's are trying this out. If you are they are mainly BfN trained I think as they had some jobs advitised a while ago. Wish I didn't live on the other side of the country as I'd love to do this.

Are they offering a home vist after discarge or within 24hours of a home birth if so it's probably this new schime.

I didn't find my lady to be particularly helpful this is why I'm asking? I received a phone call after a week of being discharged and I was really struggling to feed so when she phoned I was grateful as was on verge of giving up. However when she came she watched me feed my DS and she said I had correct positioning etc and couldn't understand why baby wouldn't feed. She told me to persistent with it and she would be in touch . Kept trying but was worried baby wasn't getting enough milk so began to express into bottles which I found easy. She never got back in touch with me to find out how I was getting on ........... I hope I just had a bad experience and this is not the attitude of all the workers as then I would consider them a waste of money .

Oh dear, she doesn't sound terribly helpful :( Is this someone you paid to see then? What training did she have? I think a lot of the charity BFCs (LLL, NCT, ABM, BfN etc) will sometimes offer to do home visits. I don't know much about private BFCs. Sorry you had such a bad experience.

Hmm, that is very poor. It would be really useful to know what organisation she was from.

The thing with correct positioning and attachment is that it can look ok but not be ok (similarly it can look "wrong" but be fine). Looking is only part of the picture and needs to be combined with a number of other factors, including how you as the mother are feeling about the latch.

Are you still wanting to directly breastfeed? Can anyone here help? Can you tell us more detail about how your baby won't feed?

It is perfectly possible to exclusively express for your baby. Most people find it a harder alternative to direct breastfeeding, but not all. It is usually crucial in the early days to express very, very frequently, day and night, 10-12 times in 24 hours (so that's nearly every 2 hours). This is because pumps are less effective at removing milk than your baby (when feeding well) and it is critical to "set" your body's milk production at a high enough level to make enough milk as he or she grows bigger. It doesn't matter at this point if that number of expressions is making way more milk than you need - just freeze it. You will either get through it, or you could consider donating it, but it's far more important to get the production kick started.

After the first 5-7 weeks (no sooner) you can start to play around and reduce the number of expressions but still retain a couple overnight for a while as that's a really critical time for telling your body to produce plenty (as night feeds are important).

Using a double pump may be most efficient and effective.

Hopefully you will be able to get your baby back to the breast directly, though, as this is usually much easier.

Do post again if there's anything that anyone can help with. Good luck xxx

My experience was similar to yours- I was told by three different breast feeding counsellors, two nursery nurses who run our breastfeeding support group, and a health visitor, that my latch looked absolutely perfect, and they couldn't see why it was still hurting me so much (one even described the latch as 'textbook.') To be fair though, they were all keen to try and help me, just none of them knew what to suggest!
I had a phone call from one of the counsellors six weeks post birth to see how I was getting on, and I told her that I was still struggling, but feeling that things were finally starting to get a bit better. I was told that as I had successfully fed DS for six weeks, I was now classed as one of their 'success stories,' and my details would be moved out of her folder, into the folder kept for these 'successes,' and I wouldn't be having any more phone calls from them as I wasn't considered to need their help any more! This despite having just told her I was still struggling!
I think the desire to help was definitely there, the problem in my area seemed to be that there wasn't enough training- a friend who started peer support training was told by other, already trained, peer supporters, that the reason her daughter was so tiny was because she only had small boobs, so clearly not enough milk in them to fill up the baby !

Am a bit at that one too pink. Mine are minute yet both DC seemed to have survived and thrived. Can't believe that people actually think like that.

Different areas are trying out different forms of pro-active support, and that's not a bad thing in itself. However the people doing the support must know how to signpost for further more in-depth help if the problems they see are not resolvable. I can tell you that breastfeeding counsellors, like me, speak to and see mothers every day who have been told their positioning and attachment is 'fine' but where there are still problems with pain....things cannot be 'fine' if the mother is in pain, and the mother should be referred to someone more expert.

As for signing you off because you have reached some arbitrary date, leaving you struggling, that's just unkind and this needs to be reported :(

tiktok I totally agree with your last point but I wonder if it's a funding issue? Only funded to 6 weeks or funded if a mum gets to 6 weeks? On the other hand SAYING that she'll be signed off as a success is really unkind - is that what you meant? Either way I'm struggling with this arbitrary time with a group I work with and it's very, very annoying (6 months for us).

My experience is that many health care workers including peer supporters, not surprisingly, don't want to "admit" that they don't know which can be very frustrating (this is endemic within health care - how many doctors will say they don't know?). I went through it myself when I first trained and I still have a horrible memory of a woman with torn up nipples that I could see no problem with P&A, and I didn't refer her, just encouraged her to keep going. I absolutely beat myself to shreds about that, still. :( :( But I did analyse my actions and changed what I do.

Of course, some areas just don't have anyone more qualified to refer to - so what happens then?!

To clarify - yes , she may have to be signed off the project, I understand that. I really meant 'signed off and cut adrift with no referral or signposting' is unkind, and can't really be what the project organisers had in mind :(

I agree - saying you don't know is part of being effective.

organic, if there is no where else to be referred to after 6 weeks then the project should not have even begun....but there are always the helplines who will do their best to find someone somewhere .

Not a good experience for me I'm afraid. Am a first time mum and was determined to breast feed. After an emergency c-section we had a few problems with feeding but after a lot of help from midwives we managed it. Before being discharged the nurses asked whether I would like a visit from the breastfeeding support so I agreed as I really wanted to make sure I was doing it properly. I was told to expect them the following day after leaving the hospital but no one showed up. Eventually, 4 days later after a bad night my husband rang them to see if anyone was coming and the response was so rude-she told him off over the phone for not ringing earlier! She came straight out that day and treated me with the same patronising attitude. However she was very embarrassed when looking through my notes as each midwife has written every day that I was still waiting for a visit from them. She then told me it was all my fault and that I should have rang them myself. That may be the case but as a first timer I didn't really know any better and took midwives word for it when they said they has arranged it for me.
This lady watched me do a feed said I had no problems and made me feel like I was worrying over nothing. She then said she would call in the next day for further support. She never came back despite the fact she left her scarf and nail file ( yes really). This was the same lady who did my prenatal breastfeeding workshop and after 2 hours of promoting it, at the end said to everyone 'if you can't do it who cares? It doesn't really matter!'
Thankfully I haven't had any major issues and am still breastfeeding 9 weeks on but if I had I feel that after my experience I wouldn't call on them for help. Any problems I have had have been answered by friends or on here.

The health visitors with just two days (yes really) breastfeeding training were not very helpful, nor midwives. Lots of grabbing my boobs and stuffing baby on it.

Unqualified midwifery assistants bloody amazing. They were patient, kind and encouraging. We tried various positions and one came back to see me the next day to check how I was getting on.

It takes more than 3 years to qualify as an NCT breastfeeding counsellor and the peer supporters (often NHS funded but charity trained round my way) do an 8 week course. The supporters are only allowed to give support with a qualified bfing counsellor present because they don't have the level of training required.

Having looked into setting up a peer support scheme locally it was agreed anyone who came out with "I found breastfeeding really easy so I want to help other mums do it too" would be shot extremely unlikely to be offered a place on the course.

tiktok, very true (about referrals).

Having looked into setting up a peer support scheme locally it was agreed anyone who came out with "I found breastfeeding really easy so I want to help other mums do it too" would be shot extremely unlikely to be offered a place on the course.

Absolutely right- I think part of the problem I had was that everyone I spoke to had personally found breastfeeding quite easy, so couldn't offer any suggestions from personal experience- my health visitor actually went back to her office to ask for suggestions from the other HVs, as she'd had no problems feeding her own son- One of them suggested cabbage leaves in the bra- I doubt you'd get that one from a training course!

I have just completed my training as a bf support peer and I hope I will fare better than these guys!
The training consisted in 7 weeky 2-hour sessions. All the mums there had had pretty difficult or demanding experiences, all very different: premie fed with a cup, poor milk supply, fast led-down, mastitis, thrush, twins, Irish twins, c-section, the lot.
My local PCT is doing the baby-friendly initiative and gearing up towards a UNICEF inspection. Perhaps it is something you could lobby.
It is irritating to hear about mothers being left to their own devices once they have passed the 6-week mark, through sheer teeth-grinding. Don't they realise how low the rate is at 6 months?
It is quite that a lot more needs to be done to inform and empower mothers before the birth, as it is difficult to do a lot of research once you have your nose to the grindstone.

I got a phone call, and a promise of a visit, but she didn't turn up (had a cold, didn't bother to cancel).