Breastfeeding support is there if you ask for it, you just have to empower yourself

[psweudonym]

Discuss.

[snort]

I think this could be a very interesting thread. If viewpoints such as that expressed just now exist in large numbers, no bloody wonder more isn't being ploughed into bf support.

Which thread are you referring to, though, psweudo?

enviromental impact one

See here - have just linked your post re volunteers from my bf building brand thread - I'm here in disguise

There is, as we see every day on here, very little real, information-based and reliable and accessible support for infant feeding of all types.

Mothers post on mumset checking out advice they have got from people whose job it is to help them with bf - and it's often utter shit.

I have posted before about helplines - 4 volunteer telephone lines staffed by a total of a few hundred volunteers in their own time, cannot possibly cope with the 450,000 women who breastfeed each year. They are a fantastic service, but actually, if they were advertised more heavily, we'd all be overwhelmed...

I think this is probably true but that does not mean it's good enough.

I mean, if your hoover breaks down you can
a) buy a new one
b) look in the Yellow Pages for someone who might be able to fix it, ring them up, take it round to them and wait three weeks while they fix it.
c) trawl t'internet for days / weeks / months downloading manuals and chatting to hoover geeks till you work out how to diagnose and fix it yourself.
So the support for you to mend your broken hoover yourself is there if you have the time / energy / inclination to actively look for it but it is much, much easier just to go Argos and buy a new one.

Breastfeeding support needs to be offered, not hunted for, IMO.

A woman coping with being a new mum, a baby with a poor latch, mastitis, thrush, sleep deprivation - try telling her to "empower herself" and you may die.

Hmmm, yes it's really easy to empower yourself when you haven't slept in days, your nipples are bleeding, you have a hungry crying baby and you can't even remember when you last brushed your teeth.

exactly - offered not sought
(have realised belatedly the Hooover analogy was not very coherent )

x posts there psweudonym

Our local hv team has a breastfeeding advisor and at day 3 when I was having immense difficulties I was told she'd ring me to make an appointment to come round and spend as long as we needed sorting out her latch.........

I'm still waiting for ANY follow up at all from the team and she's 6 months old now! They don't give 2 hoots about us

MrsB, also, you have time to sort out a hoover. Doesn't matter if the dust bunnies gather. But sorting out a bf problem when there are well-meaning people proffering formula (because they think they're helping you) - the correct support needs to be there, and quickly.

Canmummy, please make sure they know that you've been let down like this.

nothing to do with "empowering" yourself
my HV was rubbish - she knew i had problems feeing DS and never once observed a feed
I rang a helpline and spoke to someone lovely but they cannot come and visit you
i paid for a lactation consultant to come and see me in the end - was hugely expensive and i still gave up as it was too little too late

You also have to know that you need support and that it's possible for you to continue trying to bf without hurting yourself or your baby.

The experience of many women I know was that their support networks, both health professionals and friends/family, were telling them that they couldn't bf or that it wasn't worth continuing, that their babies needed formula. When some of them discovered later that it wasn't the case it was too late.

Another friend thought she was getting support. She spoke very highly of the midwives who were helping her. When her baby ended up back in hospital severely dehydrated because things were not going as well as she'd been assured (by several people who had seen the baby and watched her feed) her confidence in her body was shot and the decent support she was offered at the hospital was just too late. She persevered with expressing for a few more days but she just didn't trust herself to be able to produce enough to feed her baby no matter what she was told .

It took me until ds was ten weeks old to get the rl bf support I needed.

I rang all three helplines, only one had someone at the other end of it (the NCT one) and although she tried her best, she just wasn't able to help me over the phone.

I attended a local LLL group, the woman there helped me a little with positioning but told me his latch was "fine, really" and gave me a book to look at.

Now at this point I'd already bought every bloody book in the world and had posted many times on here, and got lots of help, but still I couldn't do it.

As for the health "professionals":

One MW in hospital (babyfriendly, apparently): Some babies just can't latch on.
Community MW1: his latch is fine, he isn't sucking properly, because he isn't hungry
Community MW2: you need to drink more milk, to make milk
Community MW3: give him a top up of formula, so you can go to bed, that way your breasts will fill up again and he will suck better because there is more milk there

Dh was no help, he was trying to persuade me to ff.

I kept on because I am stubborn as a mule. But in the end it was down to luck. A woman at the LLL group took me to one side and said, "I know a better bf councillor than the LLL woman, she is at the local hospital on Friday mornings".

For two Fridays I went and she wasn't there as she was on holiday. I still kept on with his crappy latch, my poor sore nipples, his constant crying and very slow weight gain, and my stubborn-ness.

Eventually I finally got to see this MW who was a specialist in bfing and she was brilliant.

Now why, when I told the HV or one of the community MWs about my problems, wasn't I told about her? Don't know, but it took a hell of a lot of searching and a whole lot of luck to find her.

So I don't know about empowering myself, but I can now completely understand why people give up.

I have two rants on this.

First is that lots of the pro bf is very much "its so easy, everyone can do it etc.". Its not easy at the beginiing. its f** difficult. I think if people were warned how hard it would be it might actually make people stick at it more as they would not feel themselves to be failures for not finding it natural and easy

Seond, there is just not enough proper support for parents and newborns full stop. When you are in hospital you are left to cope alone. Midwives are often (although not always) poorly trained and informed and are over stretched. As are HVs. Many authorities have cancelled ante-natal classes through lack of funds. Lack of support for bf is only part of the problem

I think it is to some degree down to the confidence you have in yourself to breastfeed. Because this was my 3rd baby and I had successfully breastfed my 1st 2 I KNEW I could do it but just wasn't managing it.

However, professionals sometimes see this as you not NEEDING help. I was often told in the early days by the midwives that I knew what I was doing because I was on my 3rd and discharged from hospital after just 2 days with dd not being able to latch on by herself - and they knew that! They just said persevere and she'll get the hang of it

My community midwife helped me with latch to some degree but by then she was too poorly with jaundice to be bothered. We were in such a viscious circle and the dreaded topping up was even suggested.

I know if she'd been my 1st baby I would probably have given up in the 1st few days whereas I'm still fully feeding her at 6 months as planned.

Another girl my DH works with had her dd at the same hospital a couple of weeks before and she gave up breastfeeding because of similar problems and told me her milk just didn't come in!! WTF?

Mossy - write and tell the chief exec of your PCT and whoever is co-ordinating infant feeding support in the PCT.

Your whole experience is an example of what is going wrong.

The volunteer on the helpline may be able to visit, or may not (she may not live near you - on the NCT line we have bfcs in Scotland who answer London calls and that's just one example). Mostly, we don't visit, it's true.

The contradictory and conflicting advice you got is typical.
The fact that the one good expert you were put in touch with is working essentially on her own - and gets ill, or goes away, so the service is not continuous - is typical.

Write and let people know how crap it all is.

Tiktok I did write a letter complaining to the hospital but never sent it because it was just a rant, I wasn't very calm when I wrote it!

I will write again.

Also, I want to know, when ds was born, he would not latch on at all, probably the diamorphine I had had. He was in special care for twenty four hours because he had low cord ph and because he had been born with the cord wrapped round his neck.

As a result he was given formula until he learned to latch on (a bit) in day three. From a cup, mind, but it still wasn't what I wanted.

Should I have been taught how to express, or is this normal and the right procedure?

Mossy I had a similar experience with dd1 she wouldn't latch on and because of a low blood sugar they gave her formula but via a tube in her nose (she wouldn't breastfeed, bottlefeed, cup feed, nothing!). They started me expressing after a couple of days but could hardly get anything. I don't feel too bad about this as she obviously needed something

Mossy - you should have been taught to express. Your baby could actually have had your colostrum alone. Some women can express very effectively. Some women cannot get much out in the first few days but the process of expressing stimulates milk production. You should have been shown how to hand express at least 3 hourly, moving onto the pump. Any colostrum gained should have been given to your baby.

And the expressing should have started as soon as possible after birth

post this on the other thread (that this one stemmed from) but I thought I'd just copy and paste seen as though it is (sort of) relevent (I think LOL).

"Speaking as an exclusive breastfeeder (DS1) a "failed" (though I don't really call it that) breastfeeder (after just 5 days) with DS2, and a (currently) mix-feeder (DS3 now 6 weeks old) I can say quite catergorically that the full support isn't there. A few weeks ago I had issues with DS3 latching on (or rather not latching on and screaming hystercially). After a lot of research, online (which many mothers don't have access to/know how to use) and on the phone I discovered that the closest breastfeeding counsellor to me is in another town - the ONLY NCT Breastfeeding Counsellor who is "local" to me (in a different town) isn't currently licensed to do it and unless I could get to this other town there was no way I could get PROPER support when I really could have used it.

I called one of the helplines - but they couldn't tell me more than I'd found out on here/worked out for myself and I really could have done with SEENING someone to advise on latch/positions etc rather than just talking over the phone.

As it is we managed to get it sorted on our own - but that was through sheer determination on my behalf not through any "support" I could have got.

And as for information on display in Dr.s surgeries - it's on thing "numbers" being on display - it's another thing calling them.

I knew about the numbers - but have a (quite odd ) phobia about making calls to anyone but close friends/family and it took a LOT of courage to call the one I did.

I have no friends with babies the same age who can support me with my breastfeeding, my closest friends last breastfed approx 12yrs ago!

We do have a breastfeeding support group in our town......but it's on the edge of town where most people can't get to it (unless they happen to drive) and many don't know about.