Currently Friday afternoon is the time that I do a few hours training to be a Breastfeeding Peer Supporter. The course is 8 sessions in total and I am just at the half way point. Once qualified my role will be as a volunteer either on hospital wards or at a local Baby Cafe, supporting mothers with breastfeeding. My partner is able to get some time off in the afternoon to look after Ula while I attend. So far I have found it incredibly interesting. When I'm there, I am always bursting with so much I wish to say and at the same time trying to soak up as much as possible. I spend a lot of time reading up now on the latest evidence based information surrounding breastfeeding, and the more I know the more convinced I become that the fact we are the country with the worst breastfeeding rates in the world is a public health crisis.
But where to even begin, with a problem on such an epic scale?
The first important thing to recognise in my role, is that it is not the fault of individual mothers if they do not breastfeed. How can it be? Something so natural that has been done for thousands of years, that in many other countries and cultures is still practised by almost the entire mother population - there are clearly wider cultural and social factors as to why our rates in the UK are so low. It is a shame that much of the debate in this country surrounding breastfeeding is about the guilt and blame of mothers, when in fact so many mothers wish they could have breastfed their babies but didn't due to a lack of support. Instead we should be looking at how we can better provide support for mothers to continue breastfeeding (the UK has a reasonably high initial take up of breastfeeding, but this dramatically goes down after a number of weeks).
Much of our training is on how to listen to people when they speak, and how to ask open questions which allow the person responding to express their feelings and come to their own decisions. Telling someone what they should do, even if it is the right thing, is of course no way to persuade someone, and can often in fact have the opposite effect. At the same time, how frustrating when I might be on a ward with a new mum who is convinced she is not even going to try to breastfeed? What approach to take? I've come to the conclusion that it is the encounter with someone, the feeling we get from them, whether or not we feel like we have been truly listened to and respected, that often empowers us to then go on and make a good decision. In only being allowed such brief encounters with new mothers in my role, surely such a position of respect, a listening ear and empathy are by far the most important aspects in trying to support a new mother to breastfeed?
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I was never able to feed your father - somehow my nipples were the wrong shape, and for
ReplyDeletethe fortnight I was in the Maternity Hospital (that is how long we stayed in in those days
I had quite an easy birth) I had to sit up in bed and express my breast milk into a jug and then
at feeding times feed it back to him in a bottle. I am sure it was the best thing for him but I
found it exceedingly tiring and also a bit degrading in a ward full of other women, most of
whom were able to breast feed.
Thanks for sharing that Grandma - that sounds like a tough experience. It's such a vulnerable time isn't it? And all the focus is on the needs of the baby, which is understandable, but then the mum needs extra support at the time too. Purely anecdotal of course - but none of the other mums on my ward attempted breastfeeding - I was the only one, and I was left to myself!
DeleteA great thing to do. As a bloke I can only speak as an observer but two things strike me. Until people have babies of their own they tend not to realize quite what an exhausting round-the-clock effort is involved. A desire to breastfeed can easily get swept aside in the general struggle to cope. Another is that if a mother perseveres, breastfeeding, once established, can be so much less hassle than bottle feeding!
ReplyDeleteIt is much easier once it's established, I'm sure of that, not to mention cheaper. But yes - I think the worry of having to cope with other things is something that makes breastfeeding a bit daunting for new mothers. Really they should just be able to lie down and feed their babies in those early weeks while other people do everything else - but it's so often not the case, and women feel guilty at the thought of it!
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