Quick Survey on BreastFeeding - Please Take A Look :-)

[Lact8]

I have written and re-written this post and keep deleting as sometimes dicussing breastfeeding on here seems to offend or some say makes them feel guilty about the choices they made about feeding their babies and that's not what I'm trying to do at all.

Basically I want to pick MN's collective brain on what services would support women who want to breastfeed (I'm part of a group of local mums who are working with HV and Surestart to provide support to other mums and possibly information at antenatal stage too)

So

1. Were you advised of or did you attend any groups about breastfeeding while you were pregnant? If yes,do you feel this was useful to you when you started breastfeeding? If no, was this because they weren't available/appeal to you?

1. If you breastfed, did you need support? Who did you contact? Family? HV? LLL? MN? Other? What would've helped you the most?

1. Who was available at the hospital after the birth of your baby to provide support with starting breastfeeding? Would you want specific breastfeedng counsellors available?

1. Have you attended any Baby and Toddler Groups that are specifically aimed at breastfeeding mums? What are your experiences?

Many thanks for taking the time to read this and any replies would be most welcome

1. Went to a truly awful bf workshop for pg mums last week - terrible - was run by a midwife and she was sh*t. Bar me and one other all the others were first time mums - but we were both there to get support as well. She told them that bf was not free because they had to eat healthily WTF??? like you shouldn't anyway and that breastfeeding reduced SIDS (based on????) and when asked whether swaddling was recommened she said that mothers may find it easier to have nighties that opened ... I nearly walked out at that point!

1. With ds1 needed alot of support - he wasn't latching on properly - every bugger from the cleaner to the paed grabbed the back of his head and shoved it towards my boob and that was it - only when moved to smaller community hospital did they realise his tongue was up and wasn't getting any milk and had a blister under his tongue. when left hosp the HV was awful and eventually gave up after mentally torturing myself about what a bad mother I was. hence why I chose to go to the BF workshop this time round - but felt was pointless. Also last time rang NCT helpline only to be told to keep going - felt she didn;t understand the problem at all. (kind of covers 3 aswell!)

1. No - but have got details of one for this time.

I refused point blank to breastfeed no.2 but am planning to breastfeed no.3 and feel that mn has been the best place for info.

1. Had 2-part session as part of NHS ante-natal classes. First part with partners and second part just women. The classes were excellent and I am very glad I went to them.

1. I went to a local breastfeeding support drop in, in my town. I had been given the numbers or this by my midwife. DH was also very supportive .

1. The midwives in hospital were supportive of breastfeeding and watched me b/f a few times. I think I mainly said things were going all right and they were happy with that

1. No

1. No as I didn't know there were any!

1. Yes I did need support as I found it difficult both times. I had no help once I was discharged from midwives at 10 days with my first. Hence I used nipple shields for the whole 8 months I was feeding her, and couldn't wait to give up although she refused a bottle for several months so had to carry on! With DS still found it difficult and was more assertive about asking for help from midwives who visited. Got him feeding with nipple shields and at 4 months managed to get him feeding properly - with no help. Therefore it was all much easier so fed him for 15 motnhs. Did phone NCT helpline once at about 8 months due to it suddenly becoming painful. They were helpful and sorted it out for me. I think lessons prior to birth would have helped me as I didn't have a clue!

1. I found the most helpful person was an auxillary nurse on the ward who spent time with me. She had a lot of kids of her own and was very useful. Everyone else was in such a rush. Trained bf counsellors seem like a good idea.

1. No

1. Wasn't aware of any groups whilst I was pregnant, although some friends leant me NCT books that were v helpful & made me determined that I wanted to bf.

1. I bf dd until she was 12m and did need support right at the start, from the nurses in the hospital.

1. Fantastic help from the nurses & midwives at the hospital. I was in hospital for a week after the birth, and the brilliant nursing staff looking after me helped me establish bf, helped me to encourage dd latch on feed after feed until we'd got the hang of it, supported me to express and keep bf'ing when dd had to go into special care unit briefly - can't praise them enough. I don't know what a specialist could have added, really.

1. No, because the support I had in that first week was all I needed.

1 No, I was not advised of any breastfeeding groups. TBH would not have gone even if told about them because pre DS I was under the impression that breastfeeding would be easy. Had not even considered that it would be difficult. Although I had discovered mumsnet pre DS, I did not read the breastfeeding section.

2 I am currently breastfeeding and have not had any support. I was offered support by the NCT at a bumps and babies group but we ran out of time and had to cut short the session. I eventually discovered the mumnset section on breast and bottle feeding and found answers to my question. Frankly, if it weren't for mn I would have given up breastfeeding at about 4 weeks. I posted under a different name then.

3 It would have been incredibly helpful to have had support at the hospital. One MW did her best but was obviously busy with others. I had a c-section and have PCOS and have since found out that both impact upon establishing breastfeeding. The first week or so was hell as DS was jaundiced, lost more than 10% of body weight and would not latch on. To have had a named contact would have made a real difference in those dark early days!

Although the MW and the HV called around, they were obsessed by weighing DS rather than solving the feeding issue. If they'd concentrated on getting me breastfeeding properly then I'd have been less stressed. It's all sorted now but no thanks to the HV or MW.

4 I don't go to any groups aimed at BF mums. Again, this would have been of most use in the first 1-4 weeks when I was too frazzled t o leave the house and could not drive (due to c-section) in any case. After about 4/5 weeks when I did start driving breastfeeding was getting a little easier and didn't need the help so much. In those early days if someone had come to get me and dragged me to a group I would have gone though.

What would have helped me right back at the beginning would have been another breastfeeding mum to take me out and get me breastfeeding in public. It was a huge hurdle for me and took me a good 6 weeks to do it. I used to arrange trips out around feeding times. I would happily take part in a network now to take out a new mum so that we could breastfeed in public together. Have done it in church, M and S, restaurants, everywhere really! But was so nervous at first as my norks are the size of Wales.

Hope that helps

1. NCT antenatal class had a bfing evening & the antenatal teacher just happended to be an LLL leader as well so fell into LLL by accident & started going to meetings a couple of months before DS (now 2.5) was born. Wouldnt be breastfeeding now if it hadnt have been for that. Midwife gave me no info about bfing or groups at all.

1. Yep - DS didnt latch, was badly manhandled sleepy from the drugs they gave me despite me asking if they were ok with bfing and totally rejected my boobs when we got home from 4 days in hospital. All the advice from numerous mws and the feeding advisor there made things worse so was gald to get home and call the contacts I had gathered from NCT & LLL & finally get the right kind of help (from LLL - first lady who answered the phone! - stuck with her over a month or so until we got DS back on the boob). DH was a HUGE help during the dark times when I wanted to quit - he knew just how important it was to me.

1. Every midwife I saw gave a different piece of advice and it took 2 days to finally see the feeding coordinator who imposed a 3 hour routine which the next mw I saw prompty told me wasnt needed . Now I am wiser & know that mws bfing training is patchy & not guarranteed I shall stick to my LLL friends & leaders next time!

1. No - never found one

1. I went to a breastfeeding class when pregnant with my first- was interesting but not very "hands on" and was limited use really. (It was mostly video/ why it's great to bf, rather than how to, positions, overcoming problems etc, which would have been really helpful.) With my second, wasn't invited to any.

1. 1st time I definitely needed help- community midwife was brilliant. hospital ones weren't. Managed 3 weeks. 2nd time bought the fantasic book "what to expect when you're breastfeeding, and what if you can't" whilst pregnant and read it over and over, and also trawled the web and read as much as possible on the subject. I'm still 100% breastfeeding at 22 wks. (Had no help at all from any "real people" this time.)

1. 1st time there wasn't anyone specifically to provide bf suport but it was a small wf led birthing unit, and they were happy to help (although they missed a major problem which led to surgery). 2nd time I was only in hospital a few hours. No-one asked me how I planned to feed and I just got on with it, but I suppose if I was stuck there might have been someone around. As it turned out my ds took to it like a duck to water so wasn't really an issue.

1. Didn't know such things existed!

Good luck with this. I would have loved a named person and a direct line number of someone (preferable someone I had met!)that I could call. As it was / is I muddled through, as I suspect many people do.

1. there was a 'workshop' on offer, but only one every 5 weeks or something and i couldnt make any of the dates. i thought it would all come naturally anyway... der...

1. i did bf and i did need support. i had family, HV, NCT helpline support, but no-one really managed to help with my problem... sheer determination and eventual luck got me through...

1. midwives were available in theory. yes, i would have loved specific support.

1. no, i didnt know of any such groups when i needed them, sadly.

Hiya!

Hope this helps!

1. I attended the NCT antenatal classes and the NHS ones. At the time I thought the classes on BF were good, but looking back they were awful. They failed to explain that although BF was the most natural thing in the world it doesn't necessarily come naturally. It would have been much better to have real information about all the problems/difficulties that bf mothers can come accross and potential first-step solutions.

I almost gave up BF because I was so exhausted and stressed, but thinking about reverting to ff made me feel so guilty - the first three weeks were the worst weeks of my whole life! If I had just known I wasn't alone and my experiences were totally normal it would have taken off some of the pressure and may have enabled me to enjoy the first weeks of my baby's life!

2)I did need support, but didn't really know it. I got support from my husband firstly who took the baby away occassionally and ff so I could get some rest/sleep/sanity. It filled me with guilt, but he ensured that it was only for one feed a day, until I was back on track and exclusively bf once again.

I then got plenty of support from the others in my NCT antenatal class, who agreed with me that we had been misled expectation wise and that they too had found it difficult at first.

What would have helped the most would have been an honest account of what it is like when you and baby are learning at first!

3. At the midwife-led unit, I was observed feeding for 20 mins by a midwife. Good support at the time, - gave me tips on how to keep the feed going and checked the latch!

4)Attend the Baby Lounge near where I live. It has excellent staff but the problems I have found with it are:

1. I am in the minority as a bf mother
2. It's from 9:30 - 11:30am, which for a new mum who is having trouble bf and therefore severly lacking in sleep is total nonsense. I only made it there once bf was well established!

Bethbe

1. Was booked into a day long breastfeeding workshop run by the local NHS trust with midwives teaching techiniques ante-natally and graduating mothers returning to demonstrate/talk about how they'd found feeding. I went back when dd was 8weeks old to demonstrate/chat.

1. Didn't need support over and above midwives. Though did ring the NCT helpline when dd was about 3 weeks old because she was doing a feeding frenzy at the time and I was beyond tired.

1. There are 2 breastfeeding counsellors at the hospital who also run a couple of centres in the area.

1. Didn't attend specific groups, though the majority of mums at the post-natal group organised via the clinic were breastfeeding/had tried feeding.

1. No I wasn't - I sought them out myself via nct. It would have been good to hear this from midwife/gp etc

1. I needed huge support because nipples incredibly sore. Mother, sister (both hugely pro-bf and experience bf) supported me enormously but I also phoned a fabulous La Leche bf counsellor one night when I was in agony and I just didn't know how long I could go through the pain of it. Spoke to my sister about 10 times a day too!

1. Midwives at the hospital were mostly useless and vague. Only one NZ midwife who looked about 12 took the time to show me how to latch on properly and lie down to feed. Fabulous. Health visitor was ok but not fabulous on this.

1. I went to an excellent breastfeeding support group in a gp surgery in Highbury which was wonderful wonderful wonderful. Only went a few times but I met one of my best babymamma mates there. I wish I had been told about this when pregnant!

1. I think bf was one of the greatest joys of motherhood and it's so sad that most women do not have the kind of support you can need to bf successfully. I used to cry on the phone to my sister :"This is more painful than the birth why didn't you tell me???" and she said - we don't want to put anyone off because if you can get over this stage it's SO BRILLIANT!

Had DS in 2002 and DD in 2006. Both in hospital. Am still bf DD (8 mo).

1. No.
2. Yes, had support from mw's in hosp initially but basically got on with it myself - took about a day for DS to work it out though (but he was forceps so was a bit tired for the first day anyway). But am single-minded, so persevered. Read one of the hospital leaflets and main advice was to get as much boob in the mouth as possible so that was what I tried to do (!) Obviously, with DD, did not have any probs as had done it before.
3. mw's were very busy but were great, would have liked to have trained bf counsellors on hand - didn't know they existed until reading Mnet in 2006!
4. No. Again, didn't know they existed until reading Mnet in 2006. (To be fair, live in fairly rural part of Wales and nearest NCT is Swansea, which would be a pain for me to get to).

HTH

1. Were you advised of or did you attend any groups about breastfeeding while you were pregnant? If yes,do you feel this was useful to you when you started breastfeeding? If no, was this because they weren't available/appeal to you?

Nothing available.

1. If you breastfed, did you need support? Who did you contact? Family? HV? LLL? MN? Other? What would've helped you the most?

Yes, I needed support with DS1. I didn't ask for help, except my cousin, who is a BFC. I spoke to her on the phone a couple of times.

1. Who was available at the hospital after the birth of your baby to provide support with starting breastfeeding? Would you want specific breastfeedng counsellors available?

Nobody either time - they actively tried to STOP me bfeeding DS2 I would have loved a bfeeding counsellor available - as much for the other women who were getting appalling support from the midwives.

1. Have you attended any Baby and Toddler Groups that are specifically aimed at breastfeeding mums? What are your experiences?

No, but there is a Bumps and Babies and a local drop-in in a cafe that I'm aware of - but I do know that a bfeeding support clinic closed because it was ill-attended (and ill-advertised - hmm, wonder why nobody went then!).

Had ds in 04 (bf for 11 mths) & dd in 06 (bf for 9 mths)

1. No, b/cos I went into premature labour with ds- hadn't got to that bit in the NCT course!! Didn't expect to need it for dd
2. With ds, was in hospital for 4 days, so 'supported' by m/w & random postnatal nurses. Some great, some crap. They ALL did things differently... Rang NCT b/f line at one point (much later) and frankly, they weren't awfully helpful (I was looking for help on expressed feeds, don't think they were keen!)

With dd had a hard time around day 3-14. My lovely lovely m/w (who had been with me throughout the pg) rang/tried to come round and see a feed/gave me lots of confidence that it would settle. Key thing was that I knew & liked her (know 2 b/f councillers and didn't ring either of them...!)

1. Nurses/mw - very varied experiences as above. Would have loved a dedicated bf counciller, esp with ds, when I was getting pressurised into topping up with formula ... I gave in at 3am after a lot of emotional blackmail
2. No. Tbh, would probably have avoiding this as rather 'separatist' ... would not have wanted to feel I was trying to socialise with bf mums per se...

HTH

1. Were you advised of or did you attend any groups about breastfeeding while you were pregnant? If yes,do you feel this was useful to you when you started breastfeeding? If no, was this because they weren't available/appeal to you?

I went to an antenatal class where some basic info was provided. Was not at all helpful when ds was born as didn't cover breastfeeding a premature baby (which ds was) or anything about possible problems (we had many)

1. If you breastfed, did you need support? Who did you contact? Family? HV? LLL? MN? Other? What would've helped you the most?

I needed loads of support. I recieved totally conflicting advice from midwives, neonatal nurses, lactation consultant, well-meaning friends and felt very confused. In the end dh and I worked latching on etc out for ourselves with the help of the internet.

1. Who was available at the hospital after the birth of your baby to provide support with starting breastfeeding? Would you want specific breastfeedng counsellors available?

Nobody. I was turfed out of hospital 6 hours after giving birth (ds was in intensive care). When ds was ready to start bfeeding some weeks later I was more or less ignored by nursing staff and made to feel like I was inconveniencing the staff by wanting to breastfeed

1. Have you attended any Baby and Toddler Groups that are specifically aimed at breastfeeding mums? What are your experiences?

No. I would like to but I am too scared!

1. Attended BF workshop while pregnant.

1. I have relied mainly on MN and my own intuition to get me through. My HV was very unsupportive of my BF, although my GP has been great. I didn't want to be seen as a 'nuisance'.

1. I was reliant on Staff nurses on duty on the ward. The night nurse in paticular was unsympathetic and I felt like a nuisance for asking for help. A BF counsellor would have been a great help.

1. There used to be a BF support group in my home town, but this was discontinued by the Community Healthcare staff when my dd was 4 months old.

IMHO I needed more support around weaning time, and this has simply not been available to me.

1. yes i knew of br.feeding group but didn't attend while preg.
2. yes i did br.feed had support from a. m/w who delivered son b. phoned ward for advice when i returned home c. had help from community m/wives

d. mother aunty friends e. peer supporters(i am one myself now) so i was very lucky really & had loads of help & support

1. i didn't hang around in hosp. after the birth had son @ 11pm home @ 2.30am!
2. yes went to br.feeding group run by local surestart have met a lot of people through it & would say you form a different bond with fellow br.feeders than your other baby friends

lact8 i think antenatal is the way to go & talking at antenatal groups along side m/w & h/v is good way to introduce yourself & your service good luck

1. Yes, was useful although there was some information that was ommited like it's probably going to hurt. Was just told if your doing it right it shouldn't hurt.

1. Yes. Stayed in hospital longer to get help and everyone bent over backwards to make sure it was established. My DH was a great help in encouraging me to perservere and try different techniques.

3.Had follow up care from MW and HV. could access BF counsellors.

4.Yes, it was ok but i felt i could BF so needed no more guidance but was too shy to BF in public. I should go back now i would probably benefit.

I had my first child in Italy
1 breastfeeding class in the antenatal course
2 I contacted the midwives two days after coming home from hospital. Lots of help and advise from friends and mil. My mum cooked a lot for me
3 midwife
4 I went once after returning to the uk (organized by the maternity hospital), it was run by a very nice and helpful midwife

1. Nope, none available.

1. ds1 - nobody, didn't even have internet either.

ds2 - internet friends and I found an LLL group but it took 2 hours of travelling to get to and from! ds3 - I am the support. I help at the breastfeeding group the HV's started up. After I complained alot when I was feeding ds2 that the HV's were uneducated and gave out bad advice. They are now babyfriendly trained thank goodness.

1. ds1 - nobody. Wasn't even told to try and feed him asap after the birth. 2 hours later they gave him a dummy too!

ds2- baby friendly hospital so much better! Still had to lie I'd fed to get home though. ds3 - at home and knew what i was doing by then. I think counsellors should definately be available and that all mw and any other HCP involved in maternity care are babyfriendly trained at least.

1. As above I used to go LLL but my nearest group no longer meet as the leader has been unwell. Even then apart from the leader there nobody really fed past a year.

There is a support group now in town that I help out at. Amazes me how many myths still go about regarding breastfeeding.

1. I went to a 2-hour NCT session on breastfeeding and also had a session on it at the hospital antenatal classes. Yes, I thought this was very helpful (I suspect the hospital classes aren't run any more, though, as they were being cut back and under constant threat of withdrawal even at that time and it was over two years ago). Both these classes did mention possible problems so I felt well-informed.

1. Tricky one. "Sort of" is the answer, I suppose. It was relatively trouble-free for us but DS didn't really have a rooting reflex to speak of and I felt a lot better once MW and HV confirmed that actually that wasn't particularly unusual. And from online forums (not actually MN at that point) I knew that the constantly-feeding-all-the-bloody-time phase was just a phase and would get better, which I think gave me the strength to get through it. The HV wasn't much help at that point (she didn't say anything spectacularly wrong or clueless like some other HVs I've seen mentioned on here, she just didn't really have any advice at all). My mother and MIL had both bf several children and while they didn't necessarily give me "advice" as such the fact that they seemed to think I was doing OK gave me added confidence that I was (and the background assumption that bf was normal probably helped in my readiness for the whole thing)

1. Just the regular midwives, and I don't think any of them had specialist training. I would have loved to see a bf counsellor because that was the stage I was struggling with his non-rooting and didn't know if his latch was OK (it was, as it turned out, but I stressed about it a lot). There were people in my NCT group who ended up ff because they just couldn't get the hang of bf in hospital and there was no one at all around to help.

1. No, I didn't and don't know of any.

1. Were you advised of or did you attend any groups about breastfeeding while you were pregnant? Yes but didn't attend If yes,do you feel this was useful to you when you started breastfeeding? If no, was this because they weren't available/appeal to you? Didn't appeal to me at the time but I wish I'd given it a go

1. If you breastfed, did you need support? Yes Who did you contact? Family? HV? LLL? MN? Other? What would've helped you the most? My mum and I spoke to my midwife and hv but wished I'd spoken to a helpline or group. Just felt a bit overwhelmed at the time.

1. Who was available at the hospital after the birth of your baby to provide support with starting breastfeeding? Would you want specific breastfeedng counsellors available? Just the midwives on the ward but they were very brisk and matter of fact and couldn't really spend that much time, a specific advisor would have been much more help

1. Have you attended any Baby and Toddler Groups that are specifically aimed at breastfeeding mums? What are your experiences? nope

1. Were you advised of or did you attend any groups about breastfeeding while you were pregnant? If yes,do you feel this was useful to you when you started breastfeeding? If no, was this because they weren't available/appeal to you?

Yes i did go to bf classes and they were great but not very realistic (with regards to support available)

1. If you breastfed, did you need support? Who did you contact? Family? HV? LLL? MN? Other? What would've helped you the most?

Yes I needed support, was in a lot of pain, mw made me feel like it was my fault, the only advice I got was to take ds down to the hospital where a mw 'might' have some time to spend with me to help. At this point i couldnt go on and gave up

1. Who was available at the hospital after the birth of your baby to provide support with starting breastfeeding? Would you want specific breastfeedng counsellors available?

The mw's were crap and very judgemental. The best support was from the student mw's and nursing auxilliaries who didnt make me feel pressured and were never rushing me, they had a calm manner about them. Yes bf counsellors would have been ideal

1. Have you attended any Baby and Toddler Groups that are specifically aimed at breastfeeding mums? What are your experiences?

No