This week is World Breastfeeding Week 2022 and we want to take the opportunity to spotlight our incredible Infant Feeding team and how we can support parents on their journeys! Did you know that some of our services have a UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Accreditation? This means we have staff that are specially trained to help people feed their babies.
This week we’ve been speaking to Anna, one of our Infant Feeding Specialists based in Bexley, about breastfeeding and what it means to her. Anna works with parents to support them throughout their feeding journey with their baby:
Anna’s 2 top breastfeeding tips:
1. Get as much evidence-based education and talk to professionals and other mums while you’re pregnant, or before having a baby. We tend to focus a lot on the labour/birth and not so much on the two years after with feeding, particularly the first 6 months. Labour and birth is probably about 24 hours of your life, but the next 6 months is a significant period when you are feeding round the clock, regardless of what method of feeding. So my top tip would be to get educated as knowledge is definitely power going into feeding.
2. My second top tip would be to get help whenever you need it. Things change so dramatically and the help is here.
Feedback
We also asked a few of our the parents who attended our clinics to share their experiences of our Infant Feeding service. Here’s what they had to say:
“It’s a lovely service, I think it’s great to have the opportunity to have someone to help along the journey of breastfeeding. It’s quite an experience that you can never prepare for but it’s nice to have someone that you can at least can make sure you’re doing the right thing.”
“Yeah, I think it gives confidence just knowing that there is support there if you are struggling. I think Anna is really good in the way she talks, it makes you feel very comfortable, and happy to share.”
“We haven’t felt rushed at all, we asked all of our questions. I would absolutely recommend the service! I was a bit nervous about asking for help because you feel like you might be judged but no it’s not like that at all. It’s so helpful, really reassuring about the bits you are doing well and it’s really gentle advice on the bits you could do better. So absolutely, I definitely would recommend asking for help if you need it.”
Our Services
If you need support with infant feeding or just want to ask a few questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Our services run across the Bromley, Bexley and Greenwich boroughs. Contact details are below: