Breast Feeding - Hold the guilt mama!

I started training to be a lactation counsellor last year. My own journey with breast feeding began long before I thought about having my own children. I remember my younger sister and cousins being breast fed and my mother being an advocate for what was back then known as ‘breast is best’. Breast feeding my own children was not a conscious decision, it was simply how I would feed my babies.

However, the reality of breast feeding a small squirming newborn was actually quite a revelation! Before I had even left hospital my midwife was rather shocked to find this young new mother happily feeding her newborn upside down. I was pretty clueless about feeding back then. I think I had one book, entitled ‘Breast is Best’ and it definitely hadn’t prepared me for floppy, wriggly newborns with the jaws of a baby crocodile! Fortunately he lived to tell the tale! The next 3 months passed in a blur of highs and lows experienced b most new mums, awe at this beautiful baby I had created, all day feeding, struggles with cracked, bleeding painful nipples, nipple shields, a crying baby, me crying. After 3 months of happily pouring what felt like my life force into this beautiful little soul, by now an enormous baby, I gratefully swapped to a bottle and formula, but boy, did I feel guilty for not continuing breast feeding. My second child had the benefit of a now slightly more experienced and less clueless mother and breast feeding ran on to the then recommended 6 months before introducing a bottle and moving to cows milk. I still felt guilty for stopping at 6 months but felt quite overwhelmed by the lack of support whilst I ran the home, feeding a baby and looking after a toddler.

By the time I gave birth to my third and final baby the advice had changed. Babies were not recommended cows milk until they were a year old, With more experience under my belt I aimed for 12 months. Suddenly my baby was 15 months old and incredibly I was still breast feeding, which was an amazing achievement. By now, I was training to become a Chiropractor in the UK with the baby in Jersey. For logistical reasons we swapped to a cup and cows milk, but goodness, I still felt guilty stopping breast feeding just to make the travel and course less stressful for me.

The reason I share this with you, is that with the right support in place, who knows, I might have continued breast feeding all 3 babies for longer and saved myself a lot of guilt! Frustratingly, even though we now know that the more support a woman has, the more likely she is to breast feed and continue feeding; this is still a theme I hear from women in clinic, the frustration and the guilt. The mums-to-be and new mums that I treat are struggling to start and continue breast feeding. Once our lovely midwives have signed off, the health visitor steps in, however, despite this mums are often unable to access the support they want or need for breast feeding despite the good work of Heath visitors. This is no criticism of our health visitors. Largely this seems to be lack of government funding for a dedicated counsellor and is as frustrating to midwives and health visitors as it is to myself and mums.

I was excited and pleased to hear recently that all midwives and I think health visitors too, have been partaking in an initiative from Unicef UK, a Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) course to support the implementation of Baby Friendly standards on breastfeeding and relationship building. This should mean that all will be ‘singing from the same song sheet’ when it comes to advice and support for breast feeding. So important! There is also a breast feeding meeting called Breastfeeding Buddies, running weekly 11-1 on Tuesdays at Communicare.

Supporting mums in pregnancy and beyond with their breast feeding journey is part of my current care package in clinic. I have completed my foundation training and continue to train with two different organisations, a medical group in Australia and also Childbirth International. My aim is to shortly provide a private service, with dedicated one on one support for mums during pregnancy and beyond, this is driving me forward in my training.

In my life as a Chiropractor, I have spent thousands of hours attending courses and deepening my knowledge of the treatment of newborns and women during and after pregnancy. I am grateful to be known to, and recommended by, many mums in the Island.