private breastfeeding adviser - have you or would you use one ?

[ricecake]

I was interested to see that someone on MN had employed the services of a "private" breastfeeding adviser.

I didn't know they existed ! I thought they all worked as volunteers.

Have you used a "private" BF adviser ? How was your experince and did you think it was money well spent ?

Hmm, the only local private BF adviser I know of is someone I've run into in other contexts, and not liked very much. She apparently charges £20 for a phone call! And is (according to the BFC who told me about this) not trained in any official way.

Then again, I have a good friend who is a BFC, and the BFC-midwives at the hospital are lovely. So why would I pay?

i would just use la leche league or nct but often the one 2 one support needed is hard to get with nhs health care

I must be honest, I think there is a niche in the market for this kind of thing.....I am sure that many would pay for it if they knew it was available!

more fool them when you can get it for free. Why not spend the money on joining LLL or similar instead and thus contribute to the cost of training more volunteer BFCs?

think pph did

Well, I was curious really. I am on my way to train as a BF adviser for a charity org. and just wanted to know whether people had used a private one and why. As you all say there are plenty of BF orgs. that can help for free.

Yes, I agree that it is sometimes difficult to get hold of a trained BF midwife on the NHS - certainly my experience was that where I gave birth there was no "trained" BF midwife - although they we extremely encouraging they couldn't really solve my problem.

I have an only child now just over 1 year old and still breastfeed because both of us love it. But I had difficulties in the first few days of his life as he didn't know how to latch on and I too didn't have enough experience despite a 2.5 hour BF session with a BF org. when I was pregnant.

DS and I only got the hang of it a few days after his birth because an experienced friend came to my home and helped and I was absolutely determined to breastfeed.

But I can see why some mothers with no help or support might have given up in similar circumstances as mine. Indeed one of the women in my ante-natal classes also had a baby who wouldn't latch on for the first few days so in a mad panic that she might be "starving" the baby her DH rushed out to a local 24 hour shop and bought formula and that was the end of BF. I had read enough about BF whne pregnant to know that babies can survive for quite a while after birth without any milk or water or food whatsoever. That's why I didn't give up.

Any way, I really do want to help women who face problems initially.