Independent Breastfeeding Information and Support JANUARY

2013 PAGE 12

50 Shades of Purple & Green: the BfN Newsletter is 50 issues old

Congratulations……………………………………………………………………………….2

Cover story………………………………………………………………………………...…..2

Editorial……………………………………………………………………………………..….4

AGM Report …………………………………………………………………………………...5

Portsmouth Study Day Report……………………………………..………………...….6-9

Abstract of research on Drugs in Breastmilk Helpline…………………………..…....9

Domestic Abuse and Breastfeeding ……………………………………….………...10-11

Pam’s Prize……………………………………………………………………………..…….11

Safeguarding…………………………………………………………………………..….….12

Barrhead Birthday party…………………………………………………………….……...13

Tandem breastfeeding…………………………………………………………..….…..14-15

Posting Guide…………………………………………………………………………...…...15

Baby Friendly Initiative Conference report……………………..………………….…..16

National Breastfeeding Helpline ……………………………….……………………..….17

Train, Tent and Baby…………………………………………………………….……...18-19

Out and about……………………………………………………………………….….…….20

News form BfN HQ in Paisley……………………………………………………….....…..21

Meet the team……………………………………………………………………….……...22-3

Fleetwood Leads the Way

Fleetwood, in North Lancashire became the first town in the UK to proclaim itself as a Breast-feeding Welcome Town in July. Our front cover shows the unveiling of the sign, marking the new status of Fleetwood as a town where

breastfeeding is always welcome.

The driving force be-hind this innovative development is our own local BfN Helper Cheryl Smith, who has championed breast-feeding in the town. With the help of other local organisations, Cheryl has signed up over 30 businesses in the town, who now welcome breastfeeding on their premises. Accredited premises display posters and stickers so that mothers wishing to breastfeed know they will be welcome. Each venue is listed on a website www.nwnbabyfriendly.org.uk and participating premises are shared with new mothers.

PAGE 2 PAGE 15

Contents & Cover Story

Cheryl: “We’ve worked very hard in Fleetwood and are delighted that the

town is going that extra mile and proclaiming itself as a breastfeed-

ing welcome town.”

ISSUE 50 PAGE 15

November saw the 5th Annual

General Meeting of the Breast-

feeding Network Ltd and Study

Day, held in Birmingham this

year this report brings together a

variety of impressions of the day

Not only is the Madeleine Carroll

suite decorated in BfN-friendly

green and purple, it is named

after a local heroine. Madeleine

Carroll (1906 -1987) was a fa-

mous actress from West Brom-

wich who gave up her career

during WW2 to join the Red

Cross and dedicated herself to

working in Europe to aid victims

of war, anywhere she could, and

in any way she could. A good

place then, to hold our 2012

AGM.

For some members the fun had

begun the night before with a

meal laid on by Nina White and

her colleagues. It is reported that,

‘they make cracking cakes in

Sandwell’. Besides baking the

local BfN had laid on a warm wel-

come with different varieties of

soup ( all delicious). Their kind-

ness was very much appreciated

by all who had travelled to be

there. So were the left over

cakes brought to AGM and study

day the following morning.

With 134 members and friends

( the best attendance to date)

settled down Anabel presented

an overview of the highlights of

the past year’s events at BfN,

before the business of the AGM

was conducted. The serious bit

was an explanation of the ac-

counts (available on the web-

sites), re-election of Phyll Bu-

chanan as director and saying

goodbye to Elaine Parsons who

stood down as a director ( Good-

bye, Elaine, and thank you!).

This was followed by a session

on the BfN Code of Conduct pre-

sented by Sukie and designed to

clarify the recent changes. Next

we had Kate Mead’s very popu-

lar musical presentation on

Mums’ Milk Run , with pictures

from the many events: a lovely

way to say thank you to every-

one who had contributed .

Happily there was still time for

BfN Regional Presentations with

Cheryl Smith (see front cover )

talking about all she has being

doing in Fleetwood, described

by several of the audience as

‘inspiring’. Nina White spoke on

the very new Sandwell project.

Fortunately the meeting broke up early for an extended lunch, giving more opportunity to net-work than usual (though it is never enough), to take the chil-dren for a walk and to explore the big spaces of the building and the arts venue next door. This is also a good place to mention the crèche Tipton Tod-dlers, recommended by BfN lo-cally, who were excellent. Gill Thompson presented the

findings of the NBH Evaluation

in the afternoon. It was a particu-

larly inspiring to hear comments

from mothers, especially when

describing the person they

spoke to .Good quotes included ‘

wise women who know where

you are coming from ‘. Following

straight on from that we had

Shereen Fisher talking about

how the helpline was working

and explaining the recent

changes to NBH, many of

which flowed from Gill ‘s find-

ings . She spoke enthusiastical-

ly about how having changed

the system we are now answer-

ing more calls.

Happily there was time for more

tea before Carol Williams from

the University of Brighton spoke

about Vitamin D. Current think-

ing is that women who are not

vitamin D deficient are hard find

In Britain, however this infor-

mation is not yet widely availa-

ble among health professionals.

It was particularly interesting to

hear the questions from the

audience which contributed an-

other layer of information to the

presentation. Some of the audi-

ence felt this alone was a rea-

son to go in person to the AGM.

The information was considered

particularly useful to take away

and feedback local BfN volun-

teers,

The general consensus was

that the meeting was particular-

ly good this year. All the ele-

ments in the control of BfN met

or exceeded expectations, but

for some reason no one took

any photographs.

AGM Report

Erin: Cant’ talk now, I

need to take my

supplements. Clare: The best thing

for me was the oppor-

tunity to meet every-

one and put faces to all

the names I see every

day on my pc.

Laura: Very enjoyable

day over all. Can’t wait

till next year.

PAGE 4 PAGE 15

Many thanks to Anthea Haig, a BfN supporter from Portsmouth, for her lively account of the re-cent Portsmouth Study Day, enti-tled:

It’s not all about the food:

A look at what is special about breastmilk and

breastfeeding

Beyond the nutrient con-

tent

Portsmouth has held yet another informative and highly interesting study day, for those of you that were unable to make it, you missed an incredible day!

This year’s event focussed on the milk, its invaluable health properties, and how the act of breastfeeding itself can have long term positive effects on cra-nio-facial development. Hopeful-ly, as a mere witness to the

events, I will be able to share with you some of the information that for me, added a whole new dy-namic to breastfeeding.

Jaw Development – Harry Tor-

ney

‘Orthodontists are a modern phe-nomenon for a modern problem’ announced Harry Tourney, a re-nowned dental surgeon from Ire-land, getting the day off to a good start. In his talk he highlighted that by NOT breastfeeding, chil-dren have an increased risk of malformation of the jaws, and an increased tongue thrust that causes irregularities to cross bite, overbite and over jet of the teeth.(In both the milk teeth and perma-nent teeth, due to damage to the jaw). He demonstrated that these problems are likely to have been caused by the use of bottles, pac-ifiers and digit sucking. The long-er a baby is breastfed, the lower the incidence of malocclusion or mis-alignment of the teeth. (Labbok MH, Hendershot GE. AMJ.Prev Med 1987;3:227-32 (N-9667).

Prolonged bottle feeding, which puts the jaw in the wrong position can cause the child to develop a high ‘v’ or ‘u’ shaped palate, which forms a narrowing of the jaw. The mouth has to adjust to any object (bottle, dummy or dig-its) in the mouth other than the breast. The sucking forces that can develop impact the position of the teeth and the shape of the palate. Muscle forces always win out over bone, i.e. teeth will be moved. (www.brianpalmerdds.com). Breastfeeding for 12 months and beyond will reduce the risk of a posterior cross-bite by half. Avoiding jaw irregularities is a benefit, not of breastmilk, but of breastfeeding.

If all this wasn’t amazing enough, Mr Torney then went on to consider the link between not breastfeeding and Obstruc-tive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) which can be connected to bottle feed-ing, excessive thumb sucking and pacifier use. Objects other than the breast lead to unnatural forces that impinge on the de-velopment of the jaw, misalign-ing the teeth and narrowing the jaw, which can cause facial-skeletal abnormalities at the back of the nasal cavity .The narrowing of the nasal cavity and the added soft tissues caus-es the obstruction to the airway which is estimated to be re-duced by 35-40%. Together with a large neck and high Body Mass Index these are predictive risks for OSA. Therefore, Mr Torney concluded, it is possible that a small, but unknown, per-centage of people die of stroke and heart attack brought on by Obstructive Sleep Apnoea be-cause they were NOT breastfed.

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and the link with the Lack of Breastfeeding- Wendy

Jones

Wendy was genuinely excited to share with us a topic close to her heart, that did not involve drugs and breastfeeding: how breast milk protects against IBD which is becoming more and more prevalent. There are two main types of IBD: Crohn’s dis-ease and Ulcerative Colitis. Be-tween 6 and 12,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. Gen-erally you are more at risk of developing the disease if you have a close relative with the condition. Symptoms include chronic, urgent need for the toi-let; pain; weight loss and tired-ness. Eyes, skin, joints and liver may also be affected. IBD can affect growth, education, rela-tionships and fertility. It is possi-ble that a pathogenic infection

Portsmouth Study Day: It’s not all about the food

Harry Torney addresses the

conference

PAGE 5 PAGE 12

Portsmouth Study Day (continued)

occurs in infancy, which mani-fests as IBD later.

So what has this to do with breastfeeding? Whorwell (1979) studied 57 patients with IBD. 29.8 % had been formula fed, compared with 11.8% of matched controls who had been breastfed. Either formula feed-ing is harmful or breastfeeding is protective. (Wendy Jones Oct 2012)

Vitamin D and Obesity - Joan-

na Walker

Joanna spoke of the importance of vitamin D. It seems that infor-mation is not being disseminat-ed effectively enough. Parental knowledge is poor; a study by Sharma et al 2011 showed that 39% were unaware of the risk factors for vitamin D deficiency. 84% of parents compared with 79% of health professionals were unaware of DOH guide-lines for vitamin D in children and 18 % were unable to cite any dietary sources of vitamin D. Vitamin D is important and the National Guidance is now that all pregnant and lactating women and all under- fives should take Vitamin D, to safe-guard against rickets.

Good early nutrition also matters in early infancy. In Portsmouth 1 in 3 of our Year 6 children is overweight and 1 in 4 of our re-ception children start school over-weight. However, what is clear amongst the parents and health professionals alike, is that you can’t easily recognise whether a child is overweight, underweight, obese or normal just by looking at them. Joanna highlighted that health charts currently being used are not al-ways useful when calculating if a child has a healthy BMI, or when trying to predict a long term problem with weight. No real surprise there, then! She went on to say that breastfeed-

ing does help protect against obesity but just because you are breast feeding doesn’t mean that your child is not at risk.

Hmmm, I know you are all won-dering why? Well, this is down to observations to do with peo-ple’s behaviour around feeding. It was suggested that some people may misunderstand feeding cues; a crying baby does not always need feeding.

Joanna was concerned about ‘growth weight acceleration’, when a baby puts on weight rapidly, even in its first two weeks of life, which might lead to a metabolic syndrome that will put them at risk of obesity. Thus, slower weight gain is pre-ferred. This section of our study day led to some very challeng-ing questions for our guest speaker. The tension was pal-pable amongst the audience, as it seemed Joanna’s message was difficult to reconcile to our

ethos of demand feeding our children in those early days of breastfeeding to develop milk supply.

Breastfeeding and Healthy

Teeth - Harry Torney -

Previous newsletters show that some of you have already been delighted by Mr Torney’s talks on dental caries. So briefly there is good news: children who are breastfeed have a 40% reduced risk of dental caries. Breast milk does not support tooth decay. Decay is caused by a bacterial infection and, folks, it is carbs, namely sugar, that feeds the bacteria that causes the decay! Human milk contains antibodies that help stop the bacteria. How-ever, it has been shown that in order to help reduce a child’s exposure to bacteria the moth-er’s dental health should also be improved. In the first 6 months bacteria can pass from mother to child by cross contamination, via weaning activities such as licking and tasting and even blowing on your child’s food.(Yuck) Don’t worry, you can still kiss your babies but better brush your teeth first. Defects in the enamel of the milk teeth will

Two Portsmouth participants

“Life-enhancing mummy

magic that can only be

freely given by

Mother Nature.”

PAGE 6 PAGE 15

Portsmouth Study Day (continued)

not be carried over to the per-manent teeth. (Hooray!)

What about the children

(WATch?) ?

We were also joined by WATch?, a charitable organisa-tion which actively promotes the voices of children. They work to recognise the specific needs of babies and young infants, how important one-to-one care is, as well as care by the wider family. They value and support the whole family and want to work with families to sustain the bonding process, which begins with breastfeeding and attach-ment behaviours. If this process is disturbed, this can have ef-fects on the child’s short term security and long term resili-ence. (www.whataboutthechildren.org.uk)

You can’t put this in a tin -

Wendy Jones.

Compared to artificial substi-tutes, breast milk is totally amazing, but you already knew that, didn’t you!

Breast milk is always different; it changes to meet the needs of

your baby, its different every day, different through the day and even different according to where the baby is born. Breast milk has over 200 individual constituents that are tailored to the individual child. Breast milk cannot be reduced to its constit-uent parts.

Formula is always the same, meets nutritional needs and an-yone can feed the baby. Formu-la companies try really hard to brand and market their products to create brand loyalty. The

market is expanded with prod-ucts such as follow-on milks, one-year milk, and night time milk. In fact no one formula is superior they are all the same and there is no evidence to sup-port any difference from one stage of milk to another.

One incredible constituent of breastmilk is its active immunity protection. When making a bot-tle bacteria may be introduced at every stage from tin to skin,

the powder in the tin is not ster-ile; the vessel used may not be appropriate; the source of the water may be sub-optimal; and most of all, the use of the scoop measure is fundamental in avoiding risk of under- and over-fill, determining whether babies get more or less milk.

Breastmilk contains a protein called Lactoferrin which increas-es iron absorption, promotes growth and suppresses viral replication. This little gem is what helps to protect against coughs, sneezes and childhood diseases and is present from that first suck of lovely good-ness. For example, when mum takes baby to the shops and someone in the queue sneezes on mum, mum inhales particles of germs. Within 20 minutes mum has already formed anti-bodies to that germ which then filter through into her milk giving her baby immediate immunity from. Baby would not get that immunity if grandma had taken her to the shops, or if she were bottle fed. So this lends to the question how many of our ba-bies are not getting colostrum, which is a gift any mother could

BfN Breastfeeding Helper Lauren Upton attracted the attention of Community Patrol officers at the local Fun Day in the park in Wirrall. The event was attended by 100 chil-dren and over 80 adults, all of who had a brilliant time.

“It certainly wasn’t all about the food!”

healthcare professionals. Women reported high levels of service satisfaction (94%, n = 72/77) and healthcare professionals found the infor-mation provided useful (92%, n = 22/24). Women used the service for reassurance or because they had received conflicting information or dis-trusted healthcare profession-al advice. Healthcare profes-sionals often could not an-swer questions or took a cau-tious approach to recommen-dation (i.e. advised avoidance of medicines whilst breast-feeding); this was often at odds to advice given by staff from the Helpline. Healthcare professionals did not routinely access re-sources to answer questions, but when they did, showed a lack of confidence in data in-terpretation. Conclusions: The Breast-feeding Networks’ Drugs in Breastmilk Helpline provides an important service to breastfeeding women and healthcare staff to make in-formed decisions on medicine taking whilst breastfeeding. Healthcare professional un-certainty and incorrect advice given to breastfeeding wom-en suggests that healthcare professional education needs improving and that greater use of specialist services should be encouraged. Read the whole paper at http://www.internationalbreastfeedingjournal.com/content/pdf/1746-4358-7-6.pdf

give to her baby, even if she chooses not to continue breast-feeding.

Many of the lovely constituents of breast milk cannot be repro-duced. It contains natural prebi-otics such as Bifidus factor, which promotes the growth of Lactobacillus which, in turn, in-hibits the growth of harmful bac-teria by encouraging an acidic environment and enabling path-ogenic bacterial growth. Oligo-saccharides block the attach-ment of microbes and toxins in the GI tract, and produce a pro-tective coating through the gut. Lysozymes have anti-inflammatory activity. Their lev-els increase at around six months in a baby. This is thought to coincide with weaning to protect the gut from introduc-tory foods. These are just snip-pets of the incredible ingredients of the biological norm that is breastmilk. These factors pro-vide protection to the infant against infection and auto-immune reactions. It is the func-tion of these factors that ex-plains why breastfed babies ex-perience fewer gut infections, suffer lower rates of allergic re-actions, need less iron in breast-milk and absorb it more effec-tively. No formula company can come anywhere lose to produc-ing life enhancing mummy mag-ic that can only be freely given by Mother Nature. (www.breastfeeding-and-medication.co.uk)

I hope you have all enjoyed reading some of the highlights of the day; I encourage you to read the speakers’ for further infor-mation. We do hope to see you all at our next study day.

Special thanks to Eleanor, Liz-zie, Rachel, and Fleur and every one of the BFN girls in Ports-mouth for all their efforts with organising another fabulous day.

Enquiry analysis and user opinion of the Drugs in Breastmilk Helpline: a prospective study Rutter and Jones Interna-tional Breastfeeding Journal 2012, 7:6 Abstract Background: Since breastfeeding is universally recognised as the ideal way to feed infants, it is under-standable, and at times in-evitable, that breastfeeding mothers will want, or be re-quired, to take medication. To meet the information demands of breastfeeding mothers and healthcare professionals, a UK charity, The Breastfeeding Network, established a free tele-phone helpline to answer queries on medicines in breastmilk. This study re-ports on the enquiries re-ceived by the Drugs in Breastmilk Helpline and us-er opinion of the service. Methods: All enquirers to the Helpline between De-cember 2010 and January 2011 were asked if they could be contacted in 2 to 4 weeks to provide more in-formation on their experi-ence of using the service. A combination of telephone semi-structured interviews and email surveys were used depending on whether the enquiry originated via telephone or email. Results: Information was gained from 101 partici-pants; 77 women and 24

PAGE 7 PAGE 12

Portsmouth Study Day & Drugs in Breastmilk Study

BFN NEWSLETTER PAGE 12

Tandem feeding

Tandem feeding

A former BfN helper describes

her experiences when her sec-

ond child was born while her old-

er toddler still breastfed regular-

ly.

When I realised I was pregnant

again, my first child was 13

months old and still being breast-

fed. During a tiring pregnancy,

breastfeeding my daughter was

a reason to sit and relax. It was

a lovely time. As I grew, she

learned to curve her body

around my bump and would

stroke it while she fed.

Ian was born at 6.30am, after a

straightforward 6 hour labour.

My husband brought Becki to

visit that afternoon and she im-

mediately climbed on the bed

asking for ‘diddy’. We’d talked to

her about her brother’s imminent

arrival through the last months of

my pregnancy there is a limit to

how much you can prepare a

toddler for a sibling.

As she climbed on the bed and

latched on, her eyes were wide

with amazement and, I imagined,

a tinge of wariness. She stared

at her brother, latched on the

other side, and reached out her

free hand to explore his legs. He

moved a little in response to her

touch and we laughed, encour-

aging her to explore. We talked

all the time about what a big girl

she was, sharing her ‘diddy’ with

her brother, about being a ‘big

sister’ and what a wonderful job

she was doing ‘showing’ him

how to get his ‘diddy milk’.

Eventually her hand settled on

his, and holding hands, they

both fell asleep. First feed ac-

complished!

Of course, the three of us did

not continue in this idyllic,

dream-like fashion. I had diffi-

culties as Ian learned how to

latch on properly. The real

(and awful) difference to my

first child was that when I asked

for help from midwives, all but

one focused on the older child

feeding. They all expressed

horror at my tandem feeding,

saying things like ‘you want to

get the older one off now!’ and

suggesting that I was feeding

her for my ‘own reasons’, not

for her needs. This opposition

had the effect of making me

even more stubbornly deter-

mined to tandem feed, though I

dread to think how it might have

affected someone less awk-

ward. Luckily, one of my mid-

wives was the amazing Shirley

Northcott, who promptly put me

in touch with Jane Putsey of the

BfN so I got help with latching

and reassurance about my con-

cerns that Ian got enough co-

lostrum. Becki fed often in

those early days and perhaps

partly she was enjoying the

new consistency and flavour of

the milk, and partly she was

reassuring herself that I was

still there when she wanted me.

I made a point of never saying

‘no’ to her but I did often direct

her to the emptier breast in an

effort to save the ‘best’ for Ian.

I was slightly concerned when

Ian fell away from his centile;

he had been born on the 90th

centile and fell to around the

60th . From the very beginning

he was a totally satisfied and

happy baby, sleeping through

from three weeks old. When I

look at him now, years later, I

think that the fall in centiles was

normal for Ian. He’s never car-

ried weight, remaining lanky and

skinny all through childhood. Ian

isn’t one to overeat and always

stops when he feels full. I just

wonder if that fall in centile was

an early indication of that person-

ality trait?

At five and half weeks old, Ian

came down with severe bronchio-

litis and was hospitalised for five

days. I didn’t leave his side while

he was there and Becki had to do

without her feeds. I beat myself

up about this: if I wasn’t tandem

feeding, she wouldn’t be deprived

now. But she handled it as beau-

tifully as she handled her broth-

er’s arrival and we resumed nor-

mal service when Ian and I came

home. Becki was bonded to her

brother from the very start: I am

certain that the shared feeding

experiences created something

enormously reassuring for her –

she knew that her position in the

family would not be usurped be-

cause she was right there with

him, every minute he fed. She

was helpful and kind to her broth-

er, loving the big sister role of

letting me settle him at one side

before she latched on to the oth-

er; understanding that this was

because she was big enough to

wait.

Sometimes when I was feeding

Ian out and about, Becki would

want to feed too. Occasionally I

would tandem feed in public but

sometimes I’d just distract Becki

“holding hands, they both fell

asleep”

“Becki was bonded to her

brother from the very start.”

ISSUE 50 PAGE 15

Tandem Feeding & Posting Guide

or promise a feed later. I don’t

remember this ever being much

of an issue. It’s amazing how

easy it is to feed discreetly,

even two at a time.

I continued to tandem feed for a

period of 22 months, weaning

Becki off the breast at three

years, 9 months. She would’ve

continued but at that time I felt

that I was ready to feed only

one child. With the use of a star

chart she weaned very calmly

and happily within a period of

about two weeks. Ian continued

to breastfeed until he was four

and a half years old.

I loved my period of tandem

feeding and I’d definitely do it

again. I feel that it helped Becki

accept Ian’s arrival and em-

brace him as a part of the fami-

ly. I haven’t done justice in this

piece of writing to the amazing

bonding effect on the whole

family. My husband would often

help me shuffle them around in

the early days and then we’d all

be in a heap on the sofa, not

wanting to move and disturb the

peaceful babies.

I’m so glad BfN is there for tan-

dem feeding mothers and iscon-

tributing to the feeding of older

babies and children becoming

more accepted.

Part of the Abbeymill Complex, Paisley

BFN NEWSLETTER

Baby Friendly Initiative Annual Conference

PAGE 12

could jointly advertise NBH.

On the first day we gave away

more than 400 of them NBH

mugs, and on the 2nd day the

‘age in weeks’ ( see page xxx)

wheels were amazingly popu-

lar , with about 1000 of them

disappeared in a few hours, and

orders being taken for more dur-

ing the rest of the day. Kate

talked to lots of people about

commissioning; we gave out

one of each of our leaflets to

anyone interested. The best

thing was that lots of delegates

told us how much they love

BfN's website and leaflets and

how often they tell mums to get

in touch with us about different

things. Next year I think we

need a comments book which

might then be useful to record

these.

Alison Garrod

Further reports said that

Carlos Gonzalez talked a lot of

sense about feeding infants

Carol Bartle was good on

ethics and the code she

talked about marketing tech-

niques and marketing in

general

Gill Rapley, whose book on Ba-

by-led weaning was very popu-

lar on the Baby Milk Action

stall, explained more about

her hypothesis

While much of this might be fa-

miliar territory to the BfN audi-

ence more detail is always wel-

come and it is still necessary to

spread the message to a wider

audience. It is also important to

keep up with changes to BFI

standards and to hear what is

being done at Government level

to support breastfeeding.

Finding out that Wales had

appointed a Sally Tedstone

from BFI and the South West

Regional Coordinator to the post

of Welsh Infant Feeding Coordi-

nator.

I was sorry to hear at the event

that even more kind and com-

mitted Infant Feeding Leads

were no longer in post.

The quote from Maya Angelo

seems perfect in this setting

“I've learned that people will for-

get what you said, people will

forget what you did, but people

will never forget how you made

them feel.”

Phyll Buchanan

BFI was amazing; there were

over 900 delegates in the Motor-

point Arena in Cardiff. It’s very

handy for public transport and

motorway links. BfN and ABM

had adjoining stalls so that we

The UNICEF UK Baby Friendly

Initiative Annual Conference

2012 was held in Wales and

attended by many BfN mem-

bers, in a variety of capacities.

Here we hear some of their im-

pressions of the event.

A sparkly Cardiff was the venue

for this year’s Baby Friendly

Conference. Here are some of

my highlights to give some idea

of why it is such a great confer-

ence:

Hearing the spectacular roll

call of achievements from

many NHS trusts and Universi-

ties including many familiar to

BfN such as Wirral, Blackpool,

North Lancashire and Read-

ing. So much hard work goes

into each award,

Catching up with friends,

Hearing about the launch of

the new Guide to the Baby

Friendly Initiative Standards with

the recognition that breastfeed-

ing is so much more than nutri-

tion. The changes value the re-

ciprocal relationship between a

mother and her baby, so that

early sensitive relationship

building is included within the

standards. An interview with the

hospital manager has also been

added to strengthen the stand-

ards.

Finding that words have

moved on so ‘baby-led’ and

‘feeding cues’ have been re-

placed with responsive feeding.

Hearing a message of en-

couragement that Dr. Dan

Poulter the Parliamentary Under

-Secretary of State for Health

sent to the conference, read out

by the civil servant midwifery

lead at the Department of

Health.

Shereen Fisher and the Na-

tional Breastfeeding Helpline

Stall at BFI

Susan Brush, a mother from one of the Paisley Breast-feeding Support Groups, tells us about her impromptu trav-els with a breastfeeding baby and a tent.

For most of my adult life, I’ve been in the habit of disap-pearing off to the hills, usual-ly with a tent and some food, and returning some time later feeling refreshed for every-day life. This is a distant memory now I am the mother of two.

In June, I felt my sanity slip-ping a bit and made a sud-den decision; told my hus-band I was off for a few days, maybe a week. He could have quality time with our three year old. As I was breastfeeding baby Joanna, aged 8 ½ months, I’d take her with me.

Where to go? Somewhere a long way away (didn’t want to be driving all day) Where I could get to on a train?

I decided on a hostel, found maps, phoned hostel and found baby not welcome in dorm. So, last minute, I fished out tent and sleeping bags for me and baby, stuffed them in rucksack, with enough dark coloured fleece and waterproofs to keep ba-by and me warm, if not al-ways very clean.

We ran down the street to the train with baby in backpack, changed at Glasgow, changed at Inverness. I nib-bled the rice cakes the baby wasn’t interested in and ar-rived at my first destination, a small hostel at a smaller sta-

tion: converted train carriages. Hit the local shop and started cooking

Maybe I should say a bit about my baby’s eating habits. We are doing “baby-led weaning”, a gentle way to introduce foods: put it in front of her, and let her get on with it. She en-joys her food so much, wheth-er she’s eating any of it or not. First rule: if I buy anything just for her, she’ll probably not want it, especially if it’s expen-sive. Second rule: take cover, in warmer weather feed her naked, outside.

So there we were in a spot-lessly clean hostel and she was banging a pan on the floor while I cooked. We sat on the floor to eat. She picked at pasta, fiddled with the fruit, and enjoyed putting a hand in the tinned fish best of all. Then she tried to crawl up me. We were both a bit fragrant after that. An evening cuppa while she crawled around floor and I read the newspaper. Then she flapped it about, thought about eating it, and we both had fruit cake, quite civilised.

Next day we had breakfast outside, on a wee bit of lawn. Baby sat on plastic sheet to keep her dry, until she knocked over drinking cup and got wet, well, trousers dry…. With baby in backpack, happy enough we explored Dunrob-bin Castle and Golspie. Did she eat? She played with a bit of sandwich and banana, but mainly had breast milk.

I had thought I’d stay on north coast, at Thurso, but if I was going that far I could go over

to Orkney. So: train, bus, fer-ry, bus, short walk, another ferry, minibus. Around 7pm we arrived at campsite. I was glad to pitch my tent (size: one’s company, two’s a crowd) and make a brew. There was a bit of shelter from the wind and baby was happy to crawl on the grass there. Now, needless to say, baby had had practically no food all day. Could I face feeding her fruit on a bus or the floor of a small ferry? I’m afraid not. Nevertheless she was more than happy.

The night was clear and chilly with the sound of waves gen-tly washing up the shore. It was just days before midsum-mer and I had to get used to full daylight, inside the tent, at 11pm. And again at 3am. Baby eventually went to sleep but kept waking up, first time camping for her.

Next day I had to go on a nappy hunt as I was down to last two. I heard there were two small shops on the island, and a third that’s even small-er. Went to one shop; nap-pies too small, tried other shop; same size nappies. We bought them anyway and strawberries that we both en-joyed on the grass. It was

PAGE 18 PAGE 15

Train, Tent and Baby

Train, Tent and Baby ( continued)

PAGE 12 PAGE 12

warm enough for sun cream now.

Off for a walk along the huge beaches, empty of people, but teeming with worm mounds and birds. Back that evening, I enjoyed my “rice and slop” outside, with back-ground of gentle waves. Found it did get half dark, at 1:30am.

The last leg of holiday, bus, ferry, bus to Stromness, on Orkney mainland, from where I’d take return ferry. Lunch in, or rather, outside a cafe, was soup and bread, which baby nibbled in her back car-rier, dropping enough to keep the birds happy. A mile walk to campsite felt a long way carrying everything

When I got there I bumped into two women, also camp-ing, with a seven month old baby, doing a rather more organised trip than mine.

They kindly offered banana for my baby but I couldn’t ac-cept. The sitting room was carpeted. With Joanna’s eat-ing habits fruit would be rubbed into the floor. I micro-waved carrot for her instead, a bit less messy, but she wasn’t interested anyway. The other baby tried the car-rot, gagged on it, and was whisked away. Joanna took the chance to grab the moth-er’s bread roll and got stuck in.

Nearing the end of my trip I took chance to at last get out and do a decent hike, follow-ing the coastline down from campsite, and over to west of main island, overlooking moor and cliffs, with wild flowers blooming and gan-nets nesting precariously. We spent the day looking out over empty Atlantic and hills of Hoy, both wearing warm clothes and waterproofs against the damp northerly

wind and dark foreboding sky.

On the last morning we played and packed, and set off soon after 7am. Peaceful crossing, last look at cliffs, then landed on Scottish mainland, near Thurso. A walk, a lift, and two trains to Glasgow. I got talk-ing with a French mother and her unbelievably angelic 4 year old girl(The thought of dragging my boisterous 3 year old on a 12 hour journey) on the train, about breast feeding, in French.

At last, into Glasgow Queen Street Station and the rest of the family had come out to meet me! They’d survived a week of “quality time” and I’d returned feeling a bit more clear headed. And ready to plan camping trips for all the family.

Could I have done that trip if I wasn’t breast feeding? Don’t think so, though I was at the limit of what I could carry.

Suppose I could have left baby behind (dream on).

Bouquet for BfN volunteers in Wirrall

Out and about

BFN NEWSLETTER PAGE 12

BfN helpers in Sudbury, Bury

St Edmunds and Stowmarket

have all been provided with

knitted boobs to use when

working with mums at drop-in

groups, and for training pur-

poses, thanks to a local knit

and natter group from Café

Knit in Lavenham.

Following helper training

courses in each of the areas,

there were a lot of new help-

ers that were keen to get out

and about helping mums.

BfN helper Rachel Fleet-

wood, who is a keen knitter

herself, contacted the local

knitting group and asked if

they would be interested in

knitting some boobs so that

each new helper could have

one. Knitters in the ‘knit and

natter’ group jumped at the

chance, and there was a lot of

hilarity when customers in the

shop where they meet asked

what they were doing! Every-

one was very keen to get in-

volved, especially once they

found out how useful knitted

breasts can be for helping

mums and babies. The local

paper heard about it, and pub-

lished a story which it is hoped

will lead to more local Mums

coming along to the local

breastfeeding drop-ins!

Woolly boobs go down a treat at training

The very popular BfN stall at recent BFI conference

Feedback shared by BfN volun-teers at Home-Start Wirrall which just sums up the success of the BfN approach. ‘Every single time I have spoken to someone I have had my con-fidence restored, felt more de-termined to carry on feeding and have always felt listened too.

‘The fact that there is this won-derful service on the Wirral is priceless and its volunteers make it work!

‘I personally was under the im-pression that my baby would know what to do to feed, how wrong was I! I got so upset and frustrated and believed switching to a bottle would solve all our problems even though I passion-ately wanted to breast feed.

‘ My first (of many) calls to Home-Start calmed me down, I was so tearful and I truly believed I was being understood. A home visit was arranged immediately and the relief swept over me.

‘Everything was explained to me in a calm, friendly manner and for the first time I thought "I can do this".

….As a new mum how much you panic. With Home-Start it doesn't have to be hard!

The only reason I am breast-feeding today is down to Home-Start, once again thank you from a very happy first time mum who raves about you!’

HELPLINES

BfN Supporterline 0300 100 0210

National Breastfeeding Helpline 0300 100 0212

Drugs in Breastmilk 0844 412 4665

Supporterline in Bengali /Sylheti 0300 465 2421

Supporterline in Tamil/Telugu/Hindi 07501 466 817

Postal address:

The Breastfeeding Network PO Box 11126 Paisley PA2 8YB

Admin phone number 0844 412 0995 Email: admin@breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk Website: www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk

Abbi Ayer’s daughter Niamh took

along appropriate wardrobe items to

her first tutors’ weekend in September

The Breastfeeding Network is a Company Limited by Guarantee Registered in Scotland, No SC330639

Registered office Alexander Sloan, Chartered Accountants, 38 Cadogan Street, Glasgow, G2 7HF

With no prompting whatsoever from her

mother an older daughter at Tannahill

Breast Buddies baked and decorated

cup cakes for the Christmas Party . Not

intentionally or exclusively as pun oppor-

tunity far but too good a chance to

miss ! Everyone is wondering what cup-

size they were?