What would you tell an antenatal group about breastfeeding?

[PurplePidjin]

I've been asked to talk to the latest batch of mum to be about breastfeeding. Ds has just weaned at 15 months, and according to the mw who runs our breastfeeding group I'm an expert

So far i reckon:

it's the same amount of work as Ffs but all the hard stuff is in the first 4-6 months

formula isn't poison so don't feel guilty if you need to give it, for your own physical or mental health as much as your baby's

breastfeeding is nature's way of telling you to sit and rest after birth. you have achieved something by keeping your baby fed, if you manage dressed with a hot meal on the table you're superman

anything else?

Purple, if you only have a few minutes, then the very best and most powerful thing you can do is to show by your relaxed confidence that breastfeeding is a normal and everyday activity. You absolutely can't be expected to cover physical/clinical aspects.

Your baby is no longer breastfeeding, so maybe you can share some photographs of when you were breastfeeding? Talk about your journey, where you got support, your feelings and how they changed (if they did), not in a way that suggests 'and you will all be the same as me', but in a way that indicates that different experiences are unique to individuals and they are 'allowed' to have them.

My heart sinks at the idea of you running through all the zillion things that could go wrong as well as giving them 'permission' to formula feed in case they feel guilty blah blah blah - you won't have time :)

Sorry, and no demos with wet nappies, either :( :(

Hazlenutt is right - my converted bras were a godsend.

You have about 5 minutes? Then I think all you are being asked to say is 'this is my story'. Everything else will be covered by someone else. So talk about tongue tie or whatever if it happened to you, but not if it didn't, etc.

Maybe talk about your feelings beforehand, how you felt during and what the nice and not so nice things were for you.

Sounds like when I was asked back to my NCT teacher's new group to talk about birth, she just wanted my birth story, not anything else.

Don't see how you can do any more in the time.

I'm not buying a pack of nappies just so i can pour weird blue liquid into one

i'm sure my story isn't that interesting but never mind

I agree, I think you've been invited just to be a mum who's bf, not an expert.

Re bfing being painful in the beginning. When I was a bfing supporter we used to see lots of women who'd been struggling because they thought bfing was meant to hurt. So I don't think that's a helpful message to give out tbh. If it hurts then really, women would be much better asking for some support.

I just wanted to say thank you for the tips on converting bras, I had no idea I could do that myself! You've probably saved me a fortune

Good luck pidjin

Everyone will give you conflicting advice re how often to feed, how to feed, where and when they sleep, whether to feed on one side of both....
La leche league book opus a good 'bible' and gives you confidence yo ignore the shit advice

I am a peer supporter and a large part of that role is taking (to mums and dads) at antenatal classes. I start off by explaining what the peer support service is and does and what it's limitations are but also that we can pass on the details of someone more experienced/knowledgable if they need or want that and then I talk about my own BF experience. Then I get asked a million questions and these are most often things like 'did it hurt?' 'Did your husband help/feel left out?' 'What about expressing' 'do you have to limit what you eat?' (type of foods) 'how do you know your baby is getting enough?' Most of which has probably just been covered as often I am there for the whole class.

I do usually try and get across that most problems have a solution so good support and help is invaluable and IF I'm asked about formula I usually just say its better to avoid it is possible and why but that if you get desperate and give one or a few formula feeds then you can carry on breastfeeding, you don't have to stop just because you gave a formula feed. I also then point out that their midwife will be visiting daily at first and they can ask them for advice or ring one of the BF helplines etc.

Not sure if this has been mentioned as haven't had time to read the whole thread but I would recommend Lansinoh cream! With ds i didn't know about it and he was 12 weeks old before we had our first pain free feed (maybe don't mention that ) but with dd I'm using it after every feed - three weeks on and I only wince slightly!

I don't know if you'll be allowed to mention specific websites or books etc - probably best check with the midwife first? But yes kellymom is good as is mumsnet of course. The Breastfeeding Network is UK based and quite "official" so you might get away with that. Books wise "The Food of Love" is excellent and "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" although the name could be a bit offputting.

I'm 99% sure you'll be allowed to mention helplines and you really should if at all possible.

The National Breastfeeding Helpline (which includes the drugs in breastmilk helpline) is 0300 100 0212 - This is actually Department of Health recognised so should be NHS supported. They also have various languages - Bengali and Hindi have separate helplines - the numbers are on the BFN website. This is 9.30am to 9.30pm. Ask the midwife if she has info on this to give out, because she should have.

Then there's the LLL helpline which is 24 hours on 0845 120 2918. This you might not be allowed to promote but if you are, the 24 hour thing can be lifesaving, it's horrible in the middle of the night having nobody to talk to.

Also of course they can always call the antenatal ward until they've been signed off by the midwives at ~10 days.

to pouring blue liquid into disposables in the manner of an advert. Not really appropriate if you only have 5 mins.

From my perspective, I found the first few weeks of BF very stressful (along with many new mums on the forums here). I think that not being able to see how much your child is consuming and have the reassurance of a bottle is one of the many reasons that people give up. They assume (as I did) that the baby is constantly feeding and crying because of hunger.

I had two poor feeders - latch was fine but they were small and they both dropped substantial amounts of weight in the first week. I think that when you are inherently clueless, and people tell you that babies stomachs are the size of a small grape, then pampers adverts show you nice dry looking nappies, that your perception of what a wet nappy is and should be, is quite skewed.

In my experience by the time the health visitor turns up and finds your newborn has lost 15% in 4 days it's too late and you swiftly move in a panic onto mix feeding or 100% formula to bring them back up.
I think that had I been more aware of just how heavy the nappies should be, that I would have shouted for help sooner and ultimately would have found the whole BF process a whole lot less stressful. It's great when it all goes smoothly but it's a very easy way to measure how hydrated your baby is.

Oh and it doesn't help matters when you change the PFB nappy every 40 mins

oscar we've been almost exclusively in cloth since he was 5 days old - I'd have to actually buy the nappies first, then try and fit a nb size one on 15mo ds, then weigh the damn thing to work it out! would it be wrong of me to go off on a tangent about reusable nappies and properly supportive slings instead? I can waffle for hours about that :o

Right, so points to include:

• Wet and dirty nappies are the best indicator of your baby's progress. Expressing can be useful after the initial few weeks, but is no indicator of how much milk you're producing because babies are a bazillion percent more efficient than any pump.

• Breast milk contains more calories in an easier-to-digest way than formula. The sucking tells your body to make more milk - and it's produced as they suck - so a baby feeding for a long time means they're about to grow physically or mentally and you need to just go with it.

• In the first few weeks, you and your baby are still learning about each other. They might not know how to tell you they're hungry, and you might not know what the signs are. If in any doubt, shove a nipple at them.

• Midwives, health visitors boo hiss the ones I've met ie all of them are universally shit but I'm not going to mention that doctors and helplines are all there to support new mums. Don't be scared to ask, it's better to check something needlessly than to leave it until there's a problem.

• Lots of problems like tongue tie, mastitis, thrush are very common but not necessarily easy to spot. If breastfeeding hurts beyond the first 20-30 seconds, get checked out. Even if you have to keep asking different people, trust your instincts and don't let anyone make you feel like you're wasting their time by asking. [I think this skims over all the potential problems without getting into territory I'm not trained in?]

• Almost all babies will feed for the longest in the evening, which is cluster feeding. They will also probably need to feed in the early hours of the morning, which is biologically when your body is relaxed and producing the most milk. This is also when babies are grumpiest, which can range from moaning and being clingy to full on screaming. Diet can affect milk - cutting out caffeine all but cured it for us, other people I know had to exclude things like dairy, tomatoes, egg, garlic and onions. It's normal for them to be upset for a while in the late afternoon, but if it's more than this there may be a medical reason and you should get things checked out by a professional.

• Every feed counts. If you can only manage a couple, you've done a brilliant job. If you breastfeed to 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months or 3 years you've still done a brilliant job.

• Make sure your partner and family are in your corner. There are loads of things other people can do to support you; making sure you've got enough to eat and drink is a major one, but also skin to skin contact with his dad was just as calming for my ds as with me in the early days and even when dp was still on paternity leave, he could put ds in the sling and take him for a walk for nearly an hour giving me a much needed break. Medical advice changes between generations so even if your mum/aunt/mother in law has you at screaming point with comments about rusks in bottles and leaving them to cry, a light-hearted remark about how you're following current advice and you're sure they did the same with their babies is better for future family relationships than letting resentment build. Your hormones will be absolutely raging so keep in mind that you're not at your most rational in the first few months!

*Make sure the place you feed is comfortable and that you can reach everything you need. DP got it in the neck a couple of times in the early days when he kindly brought me tea and biscuits but put them on the side I was feeding off and I couldn't reach! Have lots of pillows for your lower back and under the arm you're holding the baby with; a drink and snack to hand; and your mobile phone, book, tablet computer, tv remote or whatever to keep you awake and entertained nearby. You need 500 extra calories a day if you can, I found that having porridge first thing then a second breakfast of something like egg on toast mid morning set me up for the day and kept me mostly away from the cake and biscuits

• Resources to investigate: Kellymom, mumsnet and Dr Jack Newman websites; Breastfeeding Network, La Leche League and obviously the breastfeeding groups in local children's centres [which is where we'll be, run by local midwives and mine has been the main reason we got as far as we did and which I've been told by the mw I should still attend to support other mums!]

What do you think?

Pidjin you won't have time to cover that in 5 mins.

Please ditch this : "Diet can affect milk - cutting out caffeine all but cured it for us, other people I know had to exclude things like dairy, tomatoes, egg, garlic and onions."

It is not worth mentioning this - there is some evidence that caffeine can affect suscpetible babies but it is rare and most mothers can have caffeine without worrying. Dairy is a massive chunk of diet to exclude - only worth doing under supervision, after a properly monitored exclusion diet. Tomatoes, egg, garlic and onions....BOO!!! Sorry - if you want a list of which foods have been thought to affect babies, you will cover miles and miles of paper. Mostly, the connection is spurious and mothers worry enough about this as it is.....'my friend said her baby was colicky after [name of foodstuff]' will derail your precious five minutes with anecdotal exchanges that have no basis in biology and just serve to raise concerns where there are none.

Stick to your own journey, show them you are normal, talk about the need for support and finding help where you can because most challenges can be overcome, and let them know this is something worth doing, that your baby and you will enjoy when it goes well, and that the more often the baby removes milk, the more milk you will make.

You will need more than 5 mins to cover that lot :)

Ha, yeah I tend to waffle especially when nervous

I didn't realise the caffeine thing was so rare, it made such a huge difference to ds when I hadn't had it - and still did right up until last week just before he weaned himself. I know quite a few adults affected by it too, which is how I found out that Costa decaff isn't completely decaff (cured the last little niggles!)

I think caffeine sensitivity does exist, but is quite rare and not worth getting mothers concerned about. many women can happily consume coffee without adverse reaction in baby. Ditto with other foods- millions of women eat onions garlic and spices in the Indian subcontinent with no ill effets to baby.

If fact it may help baby get used to Mum's cooking!

Something else.

Most women are not used to seeing babies breastfed, so they think the positioning is the same as for bottle feeding, in that the baby lies on its back. It doesn't - you need to turn the baby in, chin to chest. If you do that, you'll get better positioning for a latch and less backache.

Also babies don't just suck on the sticky out bit of the nipple. They put the whole dark coloured area in their gobs and chomp away to actually milk the breast.

Finally milk goes all thin in hot weather. This is normal and is because they need more fluid and less fat.

Tell them also about the cute quivery lip thing they do from about half way through the feed.

Boffin how will the OP fit all this into 5 minutes.

Breastfeeding covers a massive range of technical information, most of can't be and shouldn't be covered by a Mum giving a 5 minute talk about her experiences.
I think the finer points of latch need to be covered by a midwife or breastfeeding specialist rather than a Mum.

Speaking from the heart and giving a personal point of view is all that's necessary.

I think simplifying things is the way forward, not trying to include as much technical info as possible.

The mw covers the "nipple to nose tummy to mummy" stuff, then you get to practise on a dolly!

Coming at this from someone who didn't manage to bf with DC1 but keen to try- and far better informed- with DC2... I think as a first time mum I'd have appreciated most someone 'normal' describing how bf fits in with life generally, and how it is a perfectly normal thing to do- basically reassurance. I had no experience of babies, let alone bf ones!

I don't think it's really your place to cover it, but I do really wish someone had shown different positions to feed in at my (NHS) antenatal group, and especially how to overcome a difficult birth and still bf eg the effect forceps could have on me and DS (very obvious now he didn't like to be held in a certain way- basically a cradle position- and I couldn't sit due to awful tear, plus the drugs etc)

Helpful books you could recommend maybe? I have just got Baby-led Breastfeeding by the BLW woman and very quickly it clicked why it didn't work last time and I'm hoping that, and real life advice, will stand me in good stead in a couple of months time :)

Cluster feeding can happen at any time of day, although it's mostly on an evening (both my DSs have cluster fed in the morning and wee small hours too)

Support is important - going to bf groups was a godsend and a perfect place to venture to for the first public feeding.

Try feeding in front of a mirror if you are worried about how much people will see (surprisingly little )

Get ready for less than helpful comments of "advice " such as. "He can't be hungry already" (yes they can) and when's the next feed due ?" (When they're ready for it!). "Your milks obviously not enough" when cluster feeding is another one that can be trotted out.

Although your partner won't be doing the feeding it doesn't mean they can't bond with the baby. My DH also did cuddling skin to skin, nappy changes, bath time and the best thing of all especially in the early days was when he would take them for burping after a feed. He was always better at getting wind up than me anyway, and made him feel an important part of the process.

Everyone's experience is different - some find it easy, some not so. Some have issues with mastitis, engorgement, thrush, others don't. Some have problems with latch or tongue tie. Some may have very leaky breasts while others don't (decent pads are a must!) Some women enjoy the experience while others don't. Pretty much every bf problem has a bf solution so don't be afraid to ask for help. Just remember, it's a learning curve for you both - babies aren't born knowing exactly what to do any more than you are.

Ideally, make yourself sound approachable and normal. Encourage them to seek out similar mums at the local BFing support groups. Please don't preach or come across as to evangelical, just make it sound normal and doable. Talk about your favourite bits (and the bits you found hardest).