Best ways to help new mothers begin breastfeeding?

[duchesse]

A place for people's ideas on how to manage the fine line between promotion and pushing, between being realistic about what BFing is like and being offputting. How best to support people through what is an emotional and difficult time?

Just had DD2 2.5wks ago. Didn't read up on breast feeding again as thought I'd remember from the first time (managed 6wks with DD1). Wrong! So making sure mothers get some refresher course on bf, if it is their subsequent child (a leaflet would have helped even and jogged me into looking into it more).
Didn't get any help really with the feeding by any of the mw's once I'd had DD2, they too seemed to think that I should remember from the first time. On day 2 however instead of a midwife, I got what was called a Midwife support worker. She was fab. She only came out to the new mums whose only problem was feeding, which meant rather than having "rounds" to do she could call and make sure she visited when baby was feeding, and therefore when help was needed. She spent a lot of time with me, showing me positions and talking through latching on etc. Also gave me lots of free samples of Lanisoh for my sore nipples! When I saw my actual midwife a few days later I said what a great help she was and my mw agreed. It's helped the midwives a lot and given lots of new mums the actual help they need. So having more of these around the country would help mums. I'm also having issues with how to feed DD2 but keep DD1 occupied and not feel left out. Got some tips from a mw and my HV, mainly personal tips that worked for them.
And showing mums how to express would be a great help! The instructions on the box don't always work.

You beat me to it with this thread - my post title was going to be 'Normalising breastfeeding', as I am fed up of being regarded as a bit odd by some people for wanting to feed my baby people milk.

My slogan is somewhat rubbish.
'Breastfeeding - it's not as hard as some people make out, but not as easy as some others tell you either'.

From what I have seen, some mums don't even try it as they think it will be really difficult and/or not suit their lifestyle. Also there are loads of families who have always bottle fed, so can't get their heads round not knowing how many oz of milk the baby has taken.

Others have very poor support on starting bf, they seem really worried that the baby is feeding too often, or think they don't have enough milk. For some reason, noone is telling them this is normal for new babies.

I've only made it to 4 months so far, it has been a very positive experience so far, despite early difficulties.

However I was very determined to bf and made a lot of effort to be as informed as possible beforehand. I also looked for help when struggling, mostly here and on other sites.

I don't know how you make people want to breastfeed, instead of the apparently more appealing alternative.

I wanted to get out and about to my local bf group this week, but it's been cancelled due to lack of bf mothers. I live in a fairly rural area, so maybe not a large catchment for it, but I was still surprised.

I saw a bumper sticker this morning that said:
"I make milk -- what's your superpower?"

Women are more than a baby incubator and a pair of breasts. If you mother the mother than breastfeeding rates will

If the general midwifely care of all mothers was improved it would help with all aspects of maternal and baby health. There should be one midwife for every woman in labour and more postnatal and ante natal appointments.

No woman should be left on her own to scream during the second stage of labour. Yes, labour can be terrifying and things can go wrong, but good support can prevent post traumatic stress. This in turn can help the mother have the best birth experience and avoid post natal depression.

I think that better ante natal education would help. The entire family (over 16 years old) should be allowed to attend a breastfeeding workshop. There also needs to be creche facilites for children and prehaps the possiblity of attend a breastfeeding work shop at the weekend or in the evening. There needs to be information on how granmothers and partners can best support the mother.

The important thing is positioning and there are loads of good resources on the internet. Pregnant women need to be given a list of good internet links rather than some of the really scary militant webpages that a mother might find if she uses google.

The breast cancer thing was crap from a purely advertising point of view. Surely all advertisers know that if you want to promote a product, you don't mention or show anything unpleasant. Otherwise potential customers will associate the negative thing with your product even if it is designed to cure the problem. Adverts for sanitary products don't show blood; they show fit healthy women having a wonderful time and looking sexy. Adverts for nappies don't show poo.