I am now a qualified Breast Feeding counsellor

[stonea]

Congratulations Maggie

now I know who to come to for help....oh, hold on, I've been doing that for years anyway

[AmyBea]

Hi Maggie

Congratulations!!!!! you should be very proud of yourself!!!

Amyxxx

[Debbie_P]

Congratulations Maggie, what an achievement.

Love Debbiexx

[JennyBean]

Well done Maggie,

I know how much work goes into this, I am trailing miles (and years) behind you, but at least I can ask you for hints when I get going on mine again!!

Jenny

[ParklaneShaz]

WELL DONE!

I will hope to have someone like you to help and advise me when we eventually get our baby!

I was quite young when I had my daughters and had to return to work almost immediately after each one, so I chose not to breast feed. In hindsight now, I wished that I could have done and have never told my daughters that I didn't as I have always felt quite ashamed of the fact. My mum had my brother when I was 12 and I remember all too well, just how much pain she was in when she had a breast abscess whilst breastfeeding him...not to mention her shade of green, every time the district nurse came to drain it. Urghhh I am whincing just thinking about it...I think this had a very profound effect on my decision not to breastfeed and my mum fully endorsed that decision, having been through hell with her abscess.

So, I hope that when () we have our baby, that I feel that someone like yourself canbe there to support me...because I know I will need it! LOL

Shaz
x

[Ruth Walker]

Congratulations Maggie. I'm glad to hear it takes a long time to become a breast feeding counsellor. One of the worst parts of my experience in hospital with Sam was that all the staff in the NHS involved in childbirth: midwives, nursery nurses, nurses, whatever, were "trained to advise you in breast feeding" (which looking back I think must have meant they had been on a half day course, or given a leaflet, but which at the time I unfortunately took to mean they were expert). I was continually a victim of their conflicting advice and critism, with the next person attacking me for acting on the advice of the former, for instance:

The midwife at my antenatal classes told me "give your baby a breastfeed as soon as it is born and it will sleep for 12 hours, so you can have a good rest".
But a nurse woke me at 2am (8 hours after Sam was born and after I had breast fed him at birth) to ask me angrily "why haven't you woken your baby to breast feed him?", before writing in my notes "Mother let baby go EIGHT hours without breastfeeding him!".

When I rang the bell to get a nurse to assist me because Sam kept falling asleep while I tried to feed him "WHY did you wake your baby to feed him? There is NO point waking a breast fed baby to try to feed it, you should feed on demand".
But the next day another chastised me, "you shouldn't feed your baby, each time he cries, you should find some other way to comfort him, you shouldn't breastfeed more frequently than every two hours and then for no longer than fifteen minutes". She wrote in my notes "mother has no routine or consistency in feeding baby".
That night, when Sam was crying and a nurse came around she asked "why aren't you feeding him", I explained I'd fed him half an hour ago and had been told not to feed him more frequently than every two hours. She looked at me in disgust.

Then, a real gem, an old crone, some kind of nurse or other, prowled the ward, groping each of us in turn, to the young girl in the bed next to me she said "you have a lovely firm breast, my dear", before coming over, grabbing mine out of my nightie uninvited and saying sneeringly "yours are very soft," before giving it a vicious yank and remarking in surprise "you have got milk in there then," when a drop appeared, before walking off. My notes were further amended "midwife thinks mother hasn't got much milk."

This whole, hateful, experience led me to conclude that if the NHS really wants to encourage breast feeding it should stop making everyone an "expert" and assign just one REAL expert to each woman. So I think there is a real place for well trained experts such as yourself but I wish they would stop trying to make all NHS staff on post natal wards "expert" as I don't think that helps at all.

To anybody living in Suffolk and reading this - this was the Brook Ward of Ipswich hospital - avoid it if you can!

Well done on what must have been a lot of hard work, Maggie.

xxx

[Liz1967]

OMG Ruth, what a dreadful experience in this day and age, not only the conflicting advice but to have your breasts grabbed and pulled at, OMG that it outrageous

There is a terrible lack of knowledge about breastfeeding in the NHS etc, with babies 1 and 2 we both took to it like a dream, it was so easy and I couldn't imagine how anyone could have a problem. Baby no 3 however was a real poblem, Daniel lost loads of weight and instead of being confident and assertive I gave into the demands to bottle feed him by midwives, hospital staff, which of course killed off the breastfeeding. I should have trusted my instincts and just let him feed constantly to get my supply going, but when you are being fed conflicting advice and feel all hormonal/vulnerable after the birth you aren't always making the best decisions. Thank goodness Joshua is a greedy monkey who feeds brilliantly and we haven't had any problems.

There need to be lots more Maggies I think in the NHS and community.

Love
Liz
xx

[Maggie]

Ruth, I am heartbroken reading your story, that is just dreadful in this day and age especially as so many hospitals are trying to get baby friendly status - which means that they are wholly supportive of mums and their needs - including breastfeeding. It also should mean that some of the midwifes have extra breastfeeding training. You are quite right in your assumption that in general they are given very limited training in breastfeeding - half a day! And that could have been many years ago. My training is supposed to take 3 years and is VERY detailed as Jenny knows, which is why it took me 4 - with everything else in my life going on!
Sharon, breast abcess's are actually very rare and it is very easy (for someone trained) to spot a problem long before an abcess develops. Almost always it's caused by incorrect positioning of the baby so the breast is not draining properly and an abcess develops but it takes time for this to happen. With the right support and help there is no reason to suspect it would happen to you, and please don't feel guilty for your regrets about not breastfeeding your first two - there are enough things to feel bad about and you have two healthy children at the end of the day .
Thankyou everyone for your good wishes - (especially you Liz - and I agreee - there needs to be more and we need to be paid too, so many pass but can't go to hospitals and into the community much as they'd want to because they need to earn a wage ) your comments really mean a lot and I hope even though I dont get as much time on here these days, I can still help - alongside Jenny of course - and yes Jenny am always happy to help if you get stuck, but I dont think you will - one or two of the questions are a bit ambiguous, but they may well have re-worded them now.
((HUGS)) to you all
Maggie

[Rhianna]

Maggie

I can't believe I missed this post! Well done you. If only they could clone about 2 million of you and put them in hospitals all around the country. Sounds like we could certainly do with them.

It's awful to read of the terrible experiences of Ruth and Liz.

Paula x