So sad about this lack of support

[midori1999]

I saw a friend of a friend today whose baby is a few weeks old and she wants to breastfeed. She had a difficult birth and was apart from her baby, but said repeatedly in the hospital that she wanted to breastfeed, but was given no advice at all on this and her baby was given formula. On discharge she said she wanted to breastfeed and was told 'well, your baby's feeding, it's having formula, what's the problem?'. Whilst in hospital her baby wouldn't latch and she asked for help to express, but was just given formula. When she got home and saw the midwife she was told that if her baby hadn't latched by now, she never would.

She has been expressing, but this is her first baby and she is exhausted. The baby will latch a little, but is mostly on formula now and Mum's milk supply has obviously dwindled to virtually nothing as she is only managing to express twice a day. Her HV had sent her to the BF clinic where she told them she was exclusively expressing really and expressing twice a day, but they didn't give her any information on how often she should be expressing in order to build/maintain a supply and had given her very little helpful information at all, so she's just been struggling on. She wasn't even given any information about how to safely make formula.

I've given as much information as I can, lent a double breastpump and suggested hiring a hospital grade pump for now if she can afford to. I've emailed her some links to some LLL pages, Kellymom etc and lent my copy of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. I've also given her the numbers for the local La Leche League Leaders and the national helpline no, plus the dates for the next LLL meetings and said I would go with her for company if she liked. I also gave her the details of a local BF group, which is NHS run.

I feel so sad that this Mum hasn't been given more help or support despite making it very clear that she wants to breastfeed, she said today that she feels sad that she is having to give formula and wants to exclusively breastfeed.

Any suggestions for anything else I can do would be appreciated.

Anything else you can do? Depends how close you are (geographically and emotionally). If the answer is very then you could offer to come around 5 times a day, make meals and drinks and give her the time to express and let her LO latch on for a whiles to get her supply up. She should be expressing as much as a newborn would feed which is about 8 times a day. Suspect that that isn't practical though!

I think you're being a fantastic friend to her right now, and she knows someone is supporting her in breastfeeding.

Aside from that, offer to help her make a record of how she was treated and help her write a strongly worded letter of complaint to the hospital (PN ward then PALS if no good response)/midwife. It may not change her outcome but might help her feel better that something might change.

This is so sad and outrageous, I can't think of anything more except foods to help supply? The leaky b@@b fb page was talking about recipes. Defo make complaint, hospital should support bf.

I would complain direct to CEO of hospital, they will then send it downwards to pals etc but you know it's been seen by the exec then.

And relactation is possible so I don't think it is impossible to teach baby to latch.

Thats shocking. Had my 1st in hospital and tehy baby freindly so encouraged breastfeeding.

feel sad for your freind.

Im a trained peer supporter volunteering at local clinic group.

I did it as they were so much help with my 1st I mix fed.

I nfound the community midwives really helpful.

I advise freind rings nct or la leche league helpline.

make sure she drinks plenty.

keep offering breast and keep pumping.

as that builds up supply.

good luck.

I feel so for your poor friend. Its so tough in the beginning as it is. It annoys me the total lack of support with BFing.

You sound like a lovely friend by doing everything you can to help. I second the going round there if you can. Also reassuring her it may take a while but is possible with support & perseverance. A friend had a similar experience & it took about 6 weeks to wean off formula but she's still EBF at 6 months .

Can she see a lactation consultant? I saw Katie Fisher who was amazing. Good for her to keep on going, expressing is exhausting.

She will need to express at night as well.

Also tell her that it's not too late. My lo had undiagnosed TT and was bottle fed with a mixture of formula and expressed milk. We moved onto breast shields once he was diagnosed and had dropped those and ff about a week after he had had the procedure and he has been ebf ever since (now 5 months old). So, it's really not too late.

That really is shocking - her wish to breastfeed was totally ignored and I can understand how let down she must feel.

A couple of other suggestions for things to try-
-lots of skin to skin
-avoid a dummy if poss

• offer the breast as often as possible without forcing though. Co-sleep, bathe together, baby moon- just make the breast a nice place to be.
• some babies take the breast better if the mum wears a nipple shield (obv be aware of the long term impact)
• your friend may like to investigate galactalogues - either herbal or something like domperidone from a GP. (can really be used in conjunction with frequent milk removal not as an alternative)

If she wants to get back to a full milk production, she will need to express much more often that twice a day (she probably knows this).

Good luck with it all, she'll need a lot of support and encouragment to do this but it's possible to get back to some, if not full breastfeeding.

Thanks for replying. I am a peer supporter and have also exclusively expressed myself (not for long as didn't get the correct advice!) and so have told her about how often to express, how to encourage baby to latch on (skin to sklin, baths etc) as well as encouraging her to get more experienced help (LL etc). I have also lent her my Moby wrap so she can use that if she wants and explained the benefits to her.

crikeybadger, I did mention nipple shields as something she could consider in the future if she doesn't have any success once her supply is back up a bit, but did say there are potential drawbacks, so they're a sort of last resort really and I felt she need someone with more experience to advise her on their use.

I wasn't sure whether to discuss the NHS 'care' with my line manager as I am an NHS peer supporter, but she rang this morning with a Mum for me anyway, so I had a chat with her about it and she said there have been a few similar cases lately and if the Mum feels up to it at any time she'd appreciate her writing or emailing a complaint, which she can do through her if she prefers, so hopefully something will be done. She was especially saddened by the 'advice' given by the BF clinic.