Cost of an IBCLC appointment.

[ThisIsOk]

Can I ask how much you would pay to have a two hour session with an IBCLC in your home (or have paid)?

My friend used one last week and she said it cost her £150 and I was gobsmacked. I said I thought that was quite a lot of money whereas she seemed okay with paying that much.

Is that right though?

My friends wants to recommend the IBCLC to another mutual friend of ours but I’m not sure how comfortable I feel about that when the price is so high.

Or am I being deluded to think it would cost less?

There's no harm in recommending, it doesn't oblige your friend.

They do seem really expensive but as a FTM of a newborn that isn't feeding properly my threshold for spend to fix it is pretty high. Feels like everything else - baby's sleep, my sleep, my mental health,etc - is hanging off feeding properly.

Ours was £200- covered an evaluation for tongue tie, general advise on latch, pumping etc, and separating tongue tie. So yeah, I think that's reasonable.

I know many, many women who've used this same IBCLC...

The fact breastfeeding support on the NHS is so dire that people are willing to pay this is the unreasonable thing
..

You could give your mutual friend the numbers of the free BFing Helplines, the website to find your local BFing Supoort Group and point her in the direction of this board.

All of those are free forms of supporting your mutual friend then she can decide which one she is most comfortable with.

I have a friend who has just qualified as an IBCLC - she was training as a breastfeeding supporter when I had my son 17 years ago and has racked up countless hours both unpaid and paid running BF support since then. She still does some work funded by NHS/LA but I would imagine her private rates are similar to that. What do you think is reasonable for someone with nearly 20 years training under their belt?

I paid £120 for a comprehensive assessment and support and to be honest felt it was easily worth it, would have paid far more given that afterwards my 7 week old achieved a feed that didn’t make me want to cry with pain for the first time. We’re still EBF 8 months later and it’s solely thanks to the support from the IBCLC we saw. Have easily saved that much not having to buy formula which doubtless is what our outcome would have been.

Have easily saved that much not having to buy formula which doubtless is what our outcome would have been.

That's an excellent point.

I paid a little over £100 I think - it was pretty much the best money I spent on baby related things. My mental health had been in tatters as I'd so wanted to breastfeed and it was incredibly difficult. After her help practically instantly breastfeeding just worked, and I carried on for 16 months. DS2 is nearly 10 months and what I learned meant that it's been great from day 1 with him.

Is it a mutual friend asking you for a recommendation, or has your friend just mentioned that she's planning on recommending her IBCLC? As if it's the latter surely that's no issue at all, she can recommend and your mutual friend can decide if she thinks it's worth it.