Clare Byam-Cook

[MewsMum]

Hi there,
I've just been having a look through some of the breast feeding threads and just wanted to post a little note re CBC.

She is fantastic.
I gave birth to my little girl at St.Thomas' in May and although I found the midwives to be excellent the help that I got breastfeeding was awful.
It was sooo demoralizing as all the other mums in the ward seemed to be taking to it like ducks to water but I just couldn't get my little girl interested. I asked for help as having joined the NCT I had been well tutored in the 'breast is best' philosophy. However, even with my midwife painfully squeezing my nipple and another swinging the baby on to the boob (having shoved my nipple to her nose prior to no avail)it still wasn't working.
Nevertheless I was told to just keep trying as it would of course work and babies didn't really need feeding that early on - she'd be fine! We gave birth on the Wednesday, by Friday night the poor mite cried all night. By Saturday morning she was yellow, her lips were shrivelled and she looked small and exhausted.
At that point I had had ENOUGH. I had to ask for some formula and eventually it was brought to me with a syringe.
Her face when the food landed in her mouth was a picture and it still makes me cry to think about it.
From that moment on I started to bottle feed.
We left the hospital that day (I begged!) and went home, still trying the techniques taught by the NCT but to no avail. Nipple to nose, swing baby on, arm between legs etc etc. Really uncomfortable for both of us and pretty crap really.
By week 2 after 2 midwife visits and a health visitor we still weren't breast-feeding (although at least pumping). I then called the NCT breastfeeding help line and was told to 'place the naked baby onto my stomach as she would then shuffle her way up toward my breast and latch on'. Great - needless to say it didn't work. The NCT lady who could have come to the house was on holiday. I was left with a 'Good luuuck'.
Thankfully at that point a friend gave me a number for Clare Byam-Cook. She made an appointment, came to the house and had us feeding within the hour. Her common sense approach was just wonderful and she removed so much awful NCT induced guilt. She could see from the pump that I wasn't making much milk and suggested to combine bottle and boob which worked wonders.
My little girl is 9 weeks old this week, we are still breast feeding and occasionally adding a bottle when necessary. My daughter sleeps 6-7 hours each night and happily feeds every 3-4 hours.
We're still not great breast-feeders (we are better feeding at home than in Starbucks) but we are doing it pain free and we are still here!
So many other mums I know who started with the NCT method have already or are considering giving up. To be honest I am really not surprised.
So - if you are struggling DO consider other advice. The main merit of an NCT teacher is that they have breast fed themselves for 6 months. Well, I am glad that they found it so easy... some of us just don't and I'm so glad we called in the Big Guns rather than just giving up. There is a really anti CBC vibe on this site, which is really sad.
I found her to be friendly, polite and ultimately a well-informed source of breast feeding guidance. The NCT could definitely learn a thing or two...

alexpolismum -are you outside the UK? In the UK the helplines are available to everyone, no matter where they live. They are national. I am so sorry to hear there was so little support local to you .

Grendle - yes, I live in Greece. There is very little support unless you happen to live in Athens or Thessaloniki, and I am in neither of those places - and even then, there's not much!

It's ok, I found mumsnet very helpful, and managed to bf my ds for 11 months, still feeding my 1 year old dd! It just takes stubbornness determination!

Re arm between legs, every bit of bfing advice I read seemed to tell me to support DD with the opposite arm to the boob she was feeding from, which I found nigh-on impossible. Luckily we've got to nine months using the same arm as the boob she's feeding from I didn't go to any NCT classes though (but did read a couple of their magazines) so wouldn't describe it as an NCT method!

DVC that sounds familiar. I think the advice I was given was opposite arm when they're tiny (so their head is in your hand iyswim) then swop when they're a few months old. Think I tended to use pillows/cushions for the first few months anyway, so can't remember if I actually did that.

My experience of the NCT and breastfeeding support has been very good.I don't recognise the NCT method that has been described.

Arguably without the help of the local NCT bfing counsellor, I would have stopped bfing after the first few weeks. The emotional support I have been given has been just as important as practical help. I have to say I have relied on the counsellor for reassurance quite a lot as I had, what in my opinion, was quite a traumatic start to bfing and have phoned her many, many times. Having said that in the early days I did call the helpline and my experience was not so positive.

I agree with nothingventured completely.

I also think when nothing is going right, you can experience a lot of anger and frustration. Often there is not the quick fix you are desperately looking for and it is eager to direct the negative feelings towards someone who is trying to help you. I do think the advice I was given over the phone on the helpline was pretty poor but the poor woman did not deserve the rage I felt towards her for not being able to help. (just to reassure people that I am not some horribly rude person, I just said a very polite thank you on the phone and then ranted for days to my DH! ). I don't think it deserved a complaint, just wasn't that great advice.

Only read the OP but I say Clare Byam Cook in the week after ds's birth amd I concur that she was fantastic and a major factor in me continuing to breastfeed.

I think of you are having real problems breasteeding, a help line is pretty useless (even if you know about it - which I didn't) as what is often needed is someone actually there to observe and help.

Quite often the practicalities of who is available etc make this very difficult to achieve.

Lazycow - perhaps you should read this and other threads about CBC to enable you to form a fully informed opinion of said nutjob

The problem is I have read them and I haven't joined in because as many have said you can't extrapolate one experience to a general situation. I am willing to accept that CBC holds some views that are not helpful to those who are trying to encourage breastfeeding and that she is misinformed in many areas. However I didn't know any of this when I was sobbing with tiredness and had endured five nights of different midwives coming into my room every time ds fed to tell me everything seemed fine.

The agony I was in and my bleeding nipples told me another story and I was completely unable to contemplate continuing breastfeeding despite the lovely hospital bresatfeeding counsellor they eventually did send to see me while I was in hospital ( I was there for 5 days)

I in fact asked for formula while in hospital but the staff who quite rightly were very pro breastfeeding refused to give ds any. This did however make me feel desperate and trapped and as if no-one was listening.

In the end my birth doula gave me CBC's number and the numbers for the NCT etc and when I left the hospital I called them. The NCT were lovely but frankly useless as far as I was concerned as I was unable to arrange a meeting and telephone advice didn't help and I was feeling absolutely desperate at this point.

CBC saw me and she listened and she took notice and believed me when I said it hurt. She actually said what everyone else was saying that ds's latch was actually fine as far as she could see but that if it really hurt I could try nipple shields.

She had some available for me to try and helped me choose the right size for ds, which was important as even the the effort and wait of ordering them would have been too much for me at this point. She explained the possible down sides (the baby may get used to them, they might interfer with my milk production etc) but she treated me as an adult, listend to what I had to say and gave me the option. She also made me feel it was OK if breastffeding didn't work out.

This freed me to try the nipple shields as a last attempt. After that breastfeeding still hurt but it was bearable. DS eventually after a couple of weeks weaned off the shields and we exclusively breastfed for 6 months and went on to breastfeed to 2 years.

There is no way I'd have done this without her help.

I accept that my experience doesn't make CBC's views any more palatable to some it is nonetheless my experience and I didn't like some of the nasty replies to the op so I posted my experience.

Lazycow, that seems to me to be a fair summary that makes the easily-generalisable point that face to face, in person help and support is often the only thing that can help.

There is no way a band of volunteer breastfeeding counsellors from any or all the organisations can give this sort of service all the time everywhere. From what you describe of CBC's help, it was informed and effective and prob not very different from what I would do (though I would hope to avoid nipple shields and work out with you a pain-free attachment without them. If possible. Probably she hoped to do that, too.)

I think what has annoyed some people is the unpleasant slagging of NCT in particular that CBC has given in print, and the misrepresentation of what NCT says and teaches - seen also in the OP.

In addition, some of what CBC writes (about expressing to 'test' the supply) is plain wrong.

There is no way CBC could get round all the women in the country either, quite apart from the fact her service is paid for.

The health service is rubbish at supporting breastfeeding with real knowledge and skill. Merely telling women they should do it is useless

I agree tik tok. I was lucky to have the money to pay and to live somewhere close to CBC for all her faults.

I needed someone to see me feed a few times and to offer some guidance on latching on etc to be on the end of a phone for support and to listen. Just to spend some time with me one on one really.

I do think the real problem is a lack of consistent well informed face to face help but I really don't know how that can be managed.

I don't like CBC slagging of of the NCT either who I found very kind and supportive just not very much use in any practical sense, which is why I don't really post in her defence much.

I'm very glad that there are volunteer breastfeeding counsellors and peer supporters and I'm hoping to do a very basic peer support course myself, though might not get one of the places on the course here in September.

I don't like the CBC methods and some of her turns of phrase eg "duff milkers", unfortunately I actually think she probably learned these while working in hospitals, in much the same way as some of the midwives I've come across whose advice was less than helpful or downright misleading was.

I think there needs to be more specific bf support available to women in hospital (on paediatric wards and available to women who need treatment elsewhere as well as on post natal) and in the community.

For me the woman who first helped me to gain confidence that I could actually latch ds2 on to feed him and also helped me feed him lying down (correct sitting up positions for feeding were painfully uncomfortable for any length of time still) was a hospital based volunteer. But I needed help from someone who could liaise with hospital doctors up to consultant level, as he'd been readmitted to the paediatric ward, and the doctors there know scarily little about bf or supporting it.

In the community, our primary care trust employs someone who works with voluntary organisations to run bf support groups and to help health visitors working with mums and babies having feeding issues. Again, I really needed her knowledgeable help and intervention at a point where ds2's weight gain was slow enough that other health care professionals were hinting at putting him back on formula. It did matter that she was another HCP, because she needed to have credentials that were recognised by health visitors and/or doctors.

I also think that bf support should be available as part of a free at point of delivery NHS service to all mums and babies. It's not dismissing NCT or any other volunteers to say that.