Suffolk Parents- what has been your experience of breastfeeding?

[LESuffolk]

What has been your experience of Breastfeeding support in Suffolk? I was reading 'A Vision For Suffolk' by Dr Amanda Jones in which initiation and maintenance rates of BF up to 2013 was looked at and compared with other counties- Somerset and Wiltshire among them, Suffolk Mothers appear to stop BF between weeks 6-8 at a higher rate.

If this was the case for you, was it a deliberate decision or did other factors come into play?

Did you change your minds about BF or not BF because of information gained during PG? Would you have made a different decision if support had been more forthcoming and if you received support, where from?

I support the right of parents in feeding their children in a manner that works best for them and was myself the parent of an easy to BF baby and a not so easy .

As LE i am interested in learning more about the needs and wants of local parents and using what influence I do have to help work with local HCPs to better improve Health and social care provision from the point of view of parents and families.

Any comments and opinions?

What or who is an LE?

Sorry- I am the Local Editor of Mumsnet Suffolk. We do have talk pages on the Local site but local Mumsnetters never use them so I chose to post on the main site.

Here is Mumsnet Suffolk-they are a source of local information, events and services and we also post reviews of the same.

I am also a long standing Mumsnetter of some 8 years.

Lactation expert ?

Oh sorry xpost

Ah, thank you! :-)

I don't live in Suffolk but I worked in the county a few years ago, and have quite a few mum friends there. Lovely place to raise children.

Yes I am interested in hearing about any local BF support groups that might want help with promotion and access to funding - I gather funding cuts have caused issues with the continuing existence of such groups.

I'm in Ipswich Suffolk. I am still breast feeding my toddler. I found that there was little 'official' help tbh. I found LLL a lovely helpful group for advice but this only ran once a month.
What I did find helpful was the. 'Informal' groups with peer support. There are a fair few sling meets and natural parenting groups which as a by product have people attending who are experienced breast feeders who are good for moral support and advice.
There's a fairly new not for profit enterprise opened in Ipswich called the stomping ground, which offers lots of fantastic free groups including breast feeding support groups weekly which I think will be a massive help to new mums in the area.

Thanks for that Shamoy. I am trying to compile a really comprehensive listings section for these groups that I can then promote on Twitter and Facebook.

I will look up the Stomping Ground - peer support without judgement is so important as is consistent and evidence based MW and HV training -it can be shockingly inconsistent.

I think the best place to look them up is on Facebook :-)

I have left them a message and invited them to list with us. I really appreciate your posting with that info.

I live in suffolk and am breast feeding my 9 week old daughter. It has not been easy but think it is starting to become more so as time goes on. We had excellent support in ipswich hospital and have a weekly local breast feeding cafe which doesn't appear well supported by mums (only two of us there). We have also had good support from nct helpline and local counsellor.

That is good to hear somebody speak well of their hospital support. It seems that many Mums seem to adopt an approach of gaining support from as many different agencies as possible. I imagine if they all 'sing from the same hymn sheet' it is very useful.

If you let me have the details of that cafe Mirshid I can add it to the Suffolk mumsnet site and try to publicise it a bit. Getting the funds to pay for publicity seems to be an issue especially when much health promotion has been contracted out- these would traditionally be the teams that would get the message out there; not just about the benefits of BF but where to find support.

I had my DS at WSH. He was EBF to 6 months (now 10.5 months and still breastfeeding). I identify very strongly with what SuffolkNWhat says about being bombarded with 'breast is best' in pregnancy but the opposite being true once the baby arrives.

We had a difficult start with milk not in till day five. DS was very miserable on days 2-4 and by day 4 hadn't pooed for nearly 3 days. Community midwife said nothing to worry about (didn't realise it at time but really not great advice at that age!). He'd lost 12% at weigh in on day five: (a different) midwife pushed for me to top up and I refused, because milk had just come in and he was now settled/normal nappies etc. She was really pushy and guilt tripped me a lot. The reason I didn't was because I'm bolshy and DH was 100% on board. If I'd been younger/less confident/less fixed on breastfeeding/had a less supportive DH, I'm sure I would have given in. In the end, DS was weighed again two days later and had put on 5oz so they left me alone after that.

I had no problem with the HV but a couple of friends had pressure to top up/weigh frequently due to poor weight gain around the four month mark. Said 'poor' weight gain was dropping one centile line since birth

There is zero breastfeeding support at the local children's centre. I think they say staff are trained in BF support but no breastfeeding counsellor around or BF support group.

Interesting that both your experiences mirror mine and I had my last child nineteen years ago.

Hugely positive BF health and pregnancy education during ante natal care and a lack of consistent and joined up support afterwards. I had my children in two separate parts of the UK too- one in Suffolk, one in London.

I will ensure that Bosom Buddies is listed and added to my little resource database I keep for whenever I see something on twitter/FB ect asking for help. Suffolknwhat I will also talk to some people to see what I can find out about possible (free) venues for your work to continue in. I do get to meet a lot of influential people in this job and can discreetly poke around behind the scenes .

Thanks for adding The Stomping Ground- this looks lovely and I will try to visit it soon. I want to meet more Suffolk parents of younger children to ensure that the site provides what they need (and that they know about it).

Yes, tag me in or message anything you would like me to tweet.

I'm in Suffolk and breastfeeding my 9 month old. Most of my friends started off feeding but lots stopped at around six months.

I got excellent support in hospital and from my community midwife who is UNICEF trained.

I also had great support from the highly recommended Arrival Breastfeeding. They are local BF counsellors who offer free support for the Woodbridge/Kesgrave area but can be used by anyone.

www.arrivalbreastfeedingsupport.com

Thanks Iced. I'll get them listed too.