It doesn’t seem long since it was the UK Breastfeeding awareness week back in June when I wrote a few posts for the Keep Britain Breastfeeding Scavenger Hunt. Here are the posts I wrote if you missed them or would like another read:
What I love about breastfeeding
Where to turn if breastfeeding gets tough
When will I stop breastfeeding?
According to the World Breastfeeding Week website, this year’s theme is ‘Breastfeeding support: close to mothers’ – to highlight the importance of peer support for breastfeeding mums, which is key in trying to increase the number of mums who continue exclusive breastfeeding beyond the first few weeks after birth; many who hit issues don’t have the information and support to know how to overcome them. This kind of support used to be provided by the extended family, and still is in some cultures, but we no longer all live in the family communities that we did a few generations ago, where grannies, aunties, female cousins etc. would have all been there surrounding the new mum with support, particularly for things like breastfeeding.
I’ve said it before in previous posts, but I’ll say it again: support from other mums who are breastfeeding or have breastfed their children has been essential in our breastfeeding journey. So much so that I don’t think we would still be breastfeeding today if I hadn’t have come across our local La Leche League (LLL) group through going to one of the breastfeeding drop-ins in Cambridge. It would have been very easy for me to give up back when Andrew was tiny, and be part of that statistic of mums who no longer breastfeed after a few weeks. (Fair enough I didn’t manage exclusive breastfeeding anyway, but that’s a different matter and one that I have no control over.) By going along to meet-ups and talking with others about their experiences, I knew that I wasn’t alone and there was always someone I could ask for accurate information based on research, or who would just listen to me if I was having a particularly hard week. That’s the kind of support I needed and was so glad I found.
Having found this support myself, I am always keen to shout out about how important it is to find the support of other breastfeeding mums who know what it means to breastfeed successfully, in case you come across issues. In hindsight I wish I had sought a support group when I was still pregnant with Andrew, and therefore I would have already known where to turn when things got tough, so this is what I now suggest other pregnant mums do too if they are keen to breastfeed.
It’s not the case that everyone will have issues, but even if you don’t then it can’t harm to get to know other new mums too, especially if you are worried about feeling isolated after having a baby. What I like about LLL is that it’s not just about breastfeeding: it’s about mothering in general, and breastfeeding as an important aspect of that. So even if you don’t hit specific breastfeeding issues, it’s still lovely to meet up with other mums who are all different but who share a broadly similar way of parenting their children.
We go along twice a month to the LLL meet-ups that we’ve been going to since Andrew was just 4 weeks old. Now that I’m successfully breastfeeding two boys without any major issues ourselves, I see my role as a supportive one – I chat with other mums and in particular with those who have low milk supply concerns. I have thought about doing some from of peer supporter training myself, but at the moment I don’t feel I would have enough time without dropping one of my other voluntary roles (Editor of the local NCT magazine and Founder of Nappyness library and meet-ups). For now I feel that the less formal support that I can offer at LLL meet-ups is playing an important role in itself.
To draw this post back to a global perspective, World Breastfeeding Week also reminds me that in some ways we are fortunate in this country when it comes to breastfeeding. We may not have the extended family and community support these days, but we do have some fairly strict laws on formula marketing and we have safe drinking water supplies to make up powdered formula. I am glad that formula exists, because without it (or donor breast milk, but that’s a whole other post to write!) my boys wouldn’t be here. But I wish we had been able to get it on prescription as a medical necessity and I do not agree with the motivation behind the multi-national companies who sell it – that is to make as much money as possible, regardless of what that means for babies.
In many countries across the globe, formula is promoted much more ruthlessly than here and the mums who buy it often have to use contaminated drinking water to make it up and/or water it down because it’s expensive. It would be much better for their babies if they were breastfed and the mums had the support needed to do that. For these reasons I believe it’s important to raise awareness of breastfeeding on a global level during this week.
I don’t think that this post will make a big difference in the grand scheme of things, but as breastfeeding is a topic close to my heart, I can’t not write my thoughts down for this global awareness week.
Just one more thing to add is that Breastvest, who I ran a competition with during the national awareness week in June, are running some offers again this week. They’re selling off all their limited edition colours for £10 each to make way for the Autumn/winter 2013/2014 shades, and they have a 20% off promotion code: WBW20. If you’re interested, why not head over and take a look!
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