The One About Breastfeeding: Sally Rickard, Lactation Consultant

Speaker: 00:00:00

I do remember, I can picture the scene and I think I

Speaker: 00:00:02

was just completely stunned by what was going on.

Speaker: 00:00:05

And I had been led to believe that when my baby arrived, I would

Speaker: 00:00:10

immediately feel like an overwhelming rush of love and a happy bubble.

Speaker: 00:00:14

I just think I was completely mentally exhausted and stunned

Speaker: 00:00:17

by the experience, to be honest.

Speaker: 00:00:20

I went into my birth feeling very strongly that if I just

Speaker: 00:00:23

tried hard enough, I would be able to avoid all interventions.

Speaker: 00:00:27

I had gone into it ridiculously, completely determined not

Speaker: 00:00:31

to use any painkillers.

Speaker: 00:00:33

I don't know why I had that lodged in my brain as a target.

Speaker: 00:00:37

This happens in breastfeeding support too you know.

Speaker: 00:00:39

Where people feel like it's meant to hurt and if they just power

Speaker: 00:00:43

through, it must be something they're doing if it's not working.

Speaker: 00:00:46

And that they just need to be stronger, or try harder,

Speaker: 00:00:49

which is normally not true.

Speaker: 00:00:51

It's normally because they haven't been given the right information.

Speaker: 00:00:55

There's no need to ever be grabbing a baby's head.

Speaker: 00:00:58

They much prefer to feel stable.

Speaker: 00:01:00

They prefer to feel like they're on top.

Speaker: 00:01:02

And they get their hands involved and they can move and

Speaker: 00:01:05

do little press up positions.

Speaker: 00:01:07

It sounds like a revolution.

Speaker: 00:01:09

I remember when I first heard about it and I felt like it

Speaker: 00:01:12

was the opposite of a lot of things I'd learned, but it's

Speaker: 00:01:16

the original biological norm.

Speaker: 00:01:19

Having a baby is meant to be the most joyful time of your life.

Speaker: 00:01:23

But for many mums, and dads, it can be the hardest, and at

Speaker: 00:01:26

times the darkest of places.

Speaker: 00:01:29

Welcome to Season 3 of Blue MumDays, the podcast for anyone

Speaker: 00:01:33

struggling with parenting.

Speaker: 00:01:36

You need to know that you are not alone.

Speaker: 00:01:38

And these awful feelings will not be with you forever.

Speaker: 00:01:42

Just one word - all the stories shared here are from the heart.

Speaker: 00:01:46

These are real conversations and may be triggering, so

Speaker: 00:01:49

please listen with discretion.

Speaker: 00:01:51

Your wellbeing is so important, so if you need to take a breather

Speaker: 00:01:55

or stop listening, please know that you can at any point.

Speaker: 00:01:59

This episode was recorded during the summer of 2023.

Speaker: 00:02:04

My guest today is Sally Rickard.

Speaker: 00:02:07

Sally is an I B C L C lactation consultant with a background

Speaker: 00:02:11

in breastfeeding counselling.

Speaker: 00:02:13

I B C L C is the gold standard professional qualification

Speaker: 00:02:17

in breastfeeding and is globally recognised.

Speaker: 00:02:20

Sally provides breastfeeding support home visits in South

Speaker: 00:02:24

East and central London, as well as infant feeding plans.

Speaker: 00:02:28

She works with families to get breastfeeding off to a great

Speaker: 00:02:31

start and to help them solve common challenges, such as nipple

Speaker: 00:02:34

pain or infant weight concerns.

Speaker: 00:02:37

She can assess for tongue-tie, and assist with bottle, pumping

Speaker: 00:02:41

and mixed feeding plans.

Speaker: 00:02:43

Sally was a nanny for 20 years and is herself now a mother of two.

Speaker: 00:02:48

Welcome to Blue MumDays Sally, thank you for joining us today.

Speaker: 00:02:51

Thanks Vikki.

Speaker: 00:02:52

Thank you for inviting me.

Speaker: 00:02:53

Oh, I'm so pleased that we finally got to have this chat

Speaker: 00:02:58

because we've been talking about it for at least a year.

Speaker: 00:03:01

And one of the reasons I was so keen to chat to you was because I remember

Speaker: 00:03:07

my own battles with breastfeeding and how my issues with breastfeeding

Speaker: 00:03:12

really impacted on my mental health.

Speaker: 00:03:14

And I know it's a common concern for a lot of mums,

Speaker: 00:03:18

especially in the early days.

Speaker: 00:03:19

So I thought it would be a great chance to have you talk

Speaker: 00:03:22

from an expert point of view.

Speaker: 00:03:24

Hopefully we can cover some myths or give some tips and tricks, but

Speaker: 00:03:28

also to allay any sort of feelings of shame or guilt if you are

Speaker: 00:03:35

struggling with breastfeeding or if you're not able to, to breastfeed

Speaker: 00:03:38

altogether or choose not to.

Speaker: 00:03:40

So it's a beautiful sunny day.

Speaker: 00:03:43

So I don't know when this episode's going to go out, because it's going

Speaker: 00:03:46

to be part of Season Three... you may hear the birds tweeting, but

Speaker: 00:03:50

it's, yeah, we're going through a heat wave at the moment aren't we?

Speaker: 00:03:53

I've got all the doors open in my kitchen to the garden

Speaker: 00:03:55

because I'm sweating away here!

Speaker: 00:03:57

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:03:57

Yeah!

Speaker: 00:03:58

And I've got one of those summer colds, so apologies if my voice

Speaker: 00:04:01

goes a bit croaky at any points.

Speaker: 00:04:04

But thank you Sally.

Speaker: 00:04:05

So obviously I really am very keen to get talking about your

Speaker: 00:04:11

experience as a breastfeeding counsellor and lactation consultant.

Speaker: 00:04:15

But tell us about how motherhood was for you.

Speaker: 00:04:18

So you've got two children?

Speaker: 00:04:20

Yeah, I've got two children.

Speaker: 00:04:21

They're eight and nearly 11 now.

Speaker: 00:04:24

Two boys.

Speaker: 00:04:26

When I first became a mother I had already been a

Speaker: 00:04:28

nanny for many, many years.

Speaker: 00:04:31

Which, I actually reflect upon it and, think that there was quite

Speaker: 00:04:35

a few pros and cons that came with that, because I had looked

Speaker: 00:04:40

after lots of newborns before.

Speaker: 00:04:43

But that kind of meant that I had preconceived ideas and

Speaker: 00:04:46

I felt confident that I was definitely going to be good at it.

Speaker: 00:04:49

And I wonder if maybe when things were difficult, I was quite,

Speaker: 00:04:56

I don't know - something like self-conscious about that, because

Speaker: 00:04:59

I felt like my boss was watching me.

Speaker: 00:05:02

I kept my job through my maternity, so I just had 12 weeks maternity

Speaker: 00:05:06

leave and took my baby back to work.

Speaker: 00:05:07

So I had kept close to my boss at the time and she was lovely.

Speaker: 00:05:11

But I actually think that maybe I just really felt conscious that

Speaker: 00:05:14

I had to do a really great job because otherwise it would make me

Speaker: 00:05:18

look bad professionally to my nanny colleagues or my boss or something!

Speaker: 00:05:23

Some layers of like preconceptions that I had,

Speaker: 00:05:25

putting pressure on myself.

Speaker: 00:05:27

That must have been quite tough then, because actually

Speaker: 00:05:30

nothing can prepare you for it.

Speaker: 00:05:32

And I remember Liz Wise, my PND counsellor saying that actually

Speaker: 00:05:36

if you're a school teacher or a nanny, or you work with children

Speaker: 00:05:42

all the time, you know, either in hospital or otherwise that you

Speaker: 00:05:45

think, "oh, I should have this."

Speaker: 00:05:47

And actually, when you go on to become a mum yourself or a parent

Speaker: 00:05:51

yourself, it's very, very different.

Speaker: 00:05:53

So that can sometimes create problems about expectation and

Speaker: 00:05:57

putting pressure on yourself.

Speaker: 00:05:59

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:05:59

It was good in some ways actually, because there was elements of it.

Speaker: 00:06:03

Like I know some of my nanny bosses have told me, for instance, that

Speaker: 00:06:07

when they had a newborn, they literally thought they were going

Speaker: 00:06:09

to break the newborn and they were just really nervous and watching

Speaker: 00:06:12

the baby all the time and bringing them from room to room to make

Speaker: 00:06:15

sure they were still breathing.

Speaker: 00:06:17

To a certain extent I was able to be fairly blasé about a lot

Speaker: 00:06:20

of things that other people find stressful, but then I struggled

Speaker: 00:06:23

a lot with his sleep and I just had a lot of preconceptions as

Speaker: 00:06:27

well that he should like be in a routine and things should be more

Speaker: 00:06:31

organised and I wanted him to sleep through the night and stuff and

Speaker: 00:06:34

it just didn't happen of course!

Speaker: 00:06:36

I look back now and I'm like, "well, of course that didn't work!"

Speaker: 00:06:38

But I guess I was from there, I'd been maybe reading too much Gina

Speaker: 00:06:42

Ford or something as a nanny!

Speaker: 00:06:44

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:06:45

Well that's the thing isn't it?

Speaker: 00:06:47

There's so much information and conflicting information out there

Speaker: 00:06:50

and, you know, you try and prepare by reading these things or when you're

Speaker: 00:06:54

going through it, it's like, yeah.

Speaker: 00:06:56

And it's hard to know which... you know, should you be following a plan?

Speaker: 00:07:00

Should you be responding to the baby nap, you know, their own rhythms?

Speaker: 00:07:05

And yeah, it's very overwhelming as well.

Speaker: 00:07:09

Yeah, and I think you can also read like completely

Speaker: 00:07:12

conflicting things you might have.

Speaker: 00:07:15

It's quite interesting to look at Parenting and Baby Care

Speaker: 00:07:18

books, the reviews on Amazon or something, and there'll be one

Speaker: 00:07:22

book where half the reviews are one star and half the reviews

Speaker: 00:07:24

are five star for the same book.

Speaker: 00:07:26

As people are saying, "I feel evangelical about this, I

Speaker: 00:07:29

give it to all my girlfriends.

Speaker: 00:07:30

This book saved our lives.

Speaker: 00:07:31

It's so great!" And then other people are saying "this

Speaker: 00:07:33

is cruel, this is inhumane.

Speaker: 00:07:35

Don't read this book!"

Speaker: 00:07:36

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:07:37

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:07:37

Very hard to navigate.

Speaker: 00:07:39

And I, I found as well in my own experience that different health

Speaker: 00:07:43

visitors, I saw a different one every time and they would

Speaker: 00:07:46

conflict what the other one said.

Speaker: 00:07:47

And you're like, "I don't know what to do!"

Speaker: 00:07:49

Well, that's that's actually really common in breastfeeding

Speaker: 00:07:52

support as well, unfortunately, is that I guess if you're on the

Speaker: 00:07:57

postnatal ward and or when you go home and you have community

Speaker: 00:08:02

midwives and health visitors, they don't actually always have very

Speaker: 00:08:06

much training in breastfeeding.

Speaker: 00:08:08

They just have this annual mandatory training.

Speaker: 00:08:10

And unless you've got one who's got a real special interest in it

Speaker: 00:08:13

or has done a lot of breastfeeding themself, you might find that they

Speaker: 00:08:19

all tell you different things.

Speaker: 00:08:20

And lots of families I meet have just come from their postnatal ward

Speaker: 00:08:23

and they said, "I swear that 20 people helped us for five minutes

Speaker: 00:08:28

each and they all told us completely different things." And the staff

Speaker: 00:08:32

are doing their best, but they're only used to seeing babies that

Speaker: 00:08:34

are like zero to 48 hours old, and they're just really overstretched

Speaker: 00:08:39

and they haven't had the training.

Speaker: 00:08:40

So it can be a big challenge as well.

Speaker: 00:08:43

Yeah, and it's such a complex thing.

Speaker: 00:08:46

I mean, obviously, you've spent hundreds of hours training and you

Speaker: 00:08:50

know, we'll go onto the complexity of it, but also the messaging you

Speaker: 00:08:54

get as a mum before you have your baby is that breastfeeding can

Speaker: 00:08:57

take a little bit to get right.

Speaker: 00:08:59

But I don't think you quite comprehend how complex it can be

Speaker: 00:09:04

or how there are things like, you know, tongue-tie and mastitis and

Speaker: 00:09:09

you might have too little milk, you might have an over supply issue.

Speaker: 00:09:12

And coupled with the sort of paradox that you expect it to be natural.

Speaker: 00:09:17

Yes.

Speaker: 00:09:18

It's sort of biological default, so you expect it to come

Speaker: 00:09:20

naturally or be easy, and it's just really challenging often.

Speaker: 00:09:24

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:09:25

And if it doesn't come easily, you think, "what's wrong with

Speaker: 00:09:27

me?" And that can really lead to sort of negative thoughts.

Speaker: 00:09:32

Did you have any issues yourself with breastfeeding?

Speaker: 00:09:36

Well I got off to a good start with breastfeeding, but I did actually,

Speaker: 00:09:41

when my son was about 10 weeks old, and this was partly swayed

Speaker: 00:09:45

by the fact that I was taking him to work with me from 12 weeks old.

Speaker: 00:09:50

So I had that kind of ticking clock of feeling like I had

Speaker: 00:09:52

to get everything sorted.

Speaker: 00:09:54

I had a big problem with oversupply, which people think

Speaker: 00:09:57

it's not a problem but it actually can be quite challenging.

Speaker: 00:10:01

And he started refusing the breast.

Speaker: 00:10:05

And actually at that time, I don't actually know, I feel like saying

Speaker: 00:10:10

the internet didn't exist, but I was obviously just behind the times or

Speaker: 00:10:13

maybe it was just really hard to get the right information and I didn't

Speaker: 00:10:16

know who to call or what to do.

Speaker: 00:10:19

When I went home from the postnatal ward, they gave me a list of local

Speaker: 00:10:22

breastfeeding support groups and I rang them all and they were all

Speaker: 00:10:25

completely out of date and incorrect.

Speaker: 00:10:27

And I ended up going round in loops with people saying, "oh, let me put

Speaker: 00:10:29

you through to the health visitors".

Speaker: 00:10:31

Oh no, they don't know.

Speaker: 00:10:32

And these people would literally answer the phone and say, "I'm so

Speaker: 00:10:34

sorry, you rang me already 45 minutes ago and you've just been put through

Speaker: 00:10:38

to me again. I've got no idea where your local breastfeeding support is".

Speaker: 00:10:42

And finally, I don't even know how, I think I rang the N C T help line.

Speaker: 00:10:48

A lady arrived on a bike and helped me.

Speaker: 00:10:51

And looking back, I'm a bit confused by how that happened.

Speaker: 00:10:53

Sounds she wafted in like Mary Poppins!

Speaker: 00:10:57

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: 00:10:58

It's literally a lady arrived on a bike.

Speaker: 00:10:59

And I've actually met her since and I've supported her daughter

Speaker: 00:11:02

with breastfeeding since in some weird circle of life experience.

Speaker: 00:11:08

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:11:09

And she just showed me a few things that over time really made all the

Speaker: 00:11:12

difference, but was obviously beyond the abilities of the midwives and

Speaker: 00:11:17

the helpers in the children's centre.

Speaker: 00:11:19

They just didn't know.

Speaker: 00:11:20

And all I had to do was like just turn my son so that he was

Speaker: 00:11:24

facing me upright and he could just move away if he needed to.

Speaker: 00:11:27

And then he gradually got more confident.

Speaker: 00:11:29

That he was in control of how much milk he got?

Speaker: 00:11:33

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:11:34

But nobody had known that.

Speaker: 00:11:37

And if you had not had that support from that woman, you know, your

Speaker: 00:11:42

breastfeeding journey might have ended there and then, possibly?

Speaker: 00:11:45

And I, I don't know if I would've or not, I don't know how it would've

Speaker: 00:11:48

played out, but I had it in mind, I said... And I was actually trying

Speaker: 00:11:51

to hire a lactation consultant at that time, even though it would've

Speaker: 00:11:54

cost me like a week's nanny wages.

Speaker: 00:11:57

And I just couldn't find anybody and they weren't even ringing me back

Speaker: 00:12:01

or they were all booked up, because I said to myself, "I'm just going

Speaker: 00:12:04

to try and get this sorted and this is my last ditch attempt and if it

Speaker: 00:12:07

doesn't work then I'll just go to bottles." and that's because I needed

Speaker: 00:12:11

to go back to work at 12 weeks.

Speaker: 00:12:14

But I don't know what I actually would've done, whether

Speaker: 00:12:17

I would've persisted or not.

Speaker: 00:12:19

And I think that partly it's interesting how we work isn't it?

Speaker: 00:12:23

I think I was actually really determined to make the breast

Speaker: 00:12:26

feeling work because I was very disappointed by my birth.

Speaker: 00:12:29

It could have been if I'd had a really... my birth had gone as I

Speaker: 00:12:32

felt, then maybe I wouldn't have been that bothered about breastfeeding.

Speaker: 00:12:35

But somehow there was like a balance to be rebalanced there,

Speaker: 00:12:39

which is completely nonsense because they're not really related.

Speaker: 00:12:43

It's amazing, isn't it?

Speaker: 00:12:44

How years later you can actually see a sort of link between

Speaker: 00:12:49

the two things potentially?

Speaker: 00:12:51

Yeah, I think that was part of my motivation, although I

Speaker: 00:12:53

wouldn't have, um, expressed it that way at the time.

Speaker: 00:12:57

I mean, do you, do you mind talking about your birth?

Speaker: 00:13:00

Do you know, looking back, my birth wasn't actually that bad.

Speaker: 00:13:04

I mean, there's always someone with a worst story, isn't there?

Speaker: 00:13:08

But I had a very long labour and I was vomiting a lot.

Speaker: 00:13:12

I was very nauseous.

Speaker: 00:13:13

I became very dehydrated and by the time I went to

Speaker: 00:13:17

hospital, I had to have like monitoring and be on a drip.

Speaker: 00:13:20

So I was kind of immobile and it was all a bit... it took a long time

Speaker: 00:13:24

and I ended up having pethadine, epidural, which didn't work, and then

Speaker: 00:13:29

more epidural where they gave me a spinal block and then an episiotomy.

Speaker: 00:13:34

I mean, there's much worse birth stories, but I had gone into it

Speaker: 00:13:38

ridiculously, completely determined not to use any painkillers.

Speaker: 00:13:43

I don't know why I had that lodged in my brain as a target.

Speaker: 00:13:46

And so I was very disappointed.

Speaker: 00:13:50

There's such a pressure and self-imposed pressure

Speaker: 00:13:53

that, that many of us put.

Speaker: 00:13:56

It was totally self-imposed.

Speaker: 00:13:57

... That it's almost like a badge of honour if you have a natural

Speaker: 00:14:01

birth with no intervention and no drugs and ladies out there,

Speaker: 00:14:05

I'm for all the drugs in the world - if you need it, you need

Speaker: 00:14:08

it, whatever gets you through.

Speaker: 00:14:10

if you choose not to have any drugs, then that's absolutely fine too.

Speaker: 00:14:15

It should be an individual choice and obviously, you know,

Speaker: 00:14:18

hand in hand with the medical providers and you know, what

Speaker: 00:14:21

needs to happen at a given time.

Speaker: 00:14:23

But there's so many of us that feel their birth didn't go to

Speaker: 00:14:28

plan or that wasn't the joyous experience we kind of hoped it would

Speaker: 00:14:34

be or are perhaps led to believe.

Speaker: 00:14:37

Quite even, there's probably some parallels with breastfeeding support

Speaker: 00:14:40

there as well, because I went into my birth feeling very strongly that

Speaker: 00:14:44

if I just tried hard enough, I would be able to avoid all interventions.

Speaker: 00:14:49

And if I'd actually been more educated and known what the actual

Speaker: 00:14:52

statistics were or the chance for your first birth when overdue,

Speaker: 00:14:56

when needing induction to go with no need for pain relief, like

Speaker: 00:15:00

it must have been a tiny chance.

Speaker: 00:15:02

But I just felt really strongly that it was me personally,

Speaker: 00:15:05

and if I was tough enough then I would achieve that.

Speaker: 00:15:08

Which there's sometimes this happens in breastfeeding support too.

Speaker: 00:15:11

You know, where people feel like it's meant to hurt and if they just

Speaker: 00:15:15

power through, it must be something they're doing if it's not working.

Speaker: 00:15:18

And that they just need to be stronger, or try harder,

Speaker: 00:15:22

which is normally not true.

Speaker: 00:15:23

It's normally because they haven't been given the right information.

Speaker: 00:15:28

Did this impact on your own mental health in the

Speaker: 00:15:31

early days of being a mum?

Speaker: 00:15:33

I think that I got away quite well.

Speaker: 00:15:37

I do remember a health visitor?

Speaker: 00:15:42

Yeah, health visitor coming and doing a little quiz that they

Speaker: 00:15:45

ask you which has pointers for whether you feel you've got things

Speaker: 00:15:48

to look forward to, whether you struggle to sleep and so on.

Speaker: 00:15:51

Just to assess you.

Speaker: 00:15:52

Is that the Edinburgh scale?

Speaker: 00:15:53

That's right.

Speaker: 00:15:54

And she felt that I could do with an extra visit and she came back

Speaker: 00:15:59

and I think that, I do remember, I can picture the scene and

Speaker: 00:16:02

I think I was just completely stunned by what was going on.

Speaker: 00:16:06

And I had been led to believe, who knows why, that when my baby

Speaker: 00:16:12

arrived, I would immediately feel like an overwhelming rush

Speaker: 00:16:15

of love and a happy bubble.

Speaker: 00:16:16

And I was just kind of looking at him thinking, well, I can see

Speaker: 00:16:21

that he's cute, you know, from a third party point of view.

Speaker: 00:16:26

I was like, "yeah, he is nice enough, it's fine".

Speaker: 00:16:28

But I wasn't feeling any like... I just think I was completely

Speaker: 00:16:33

mentally exhausted and stunned by the experience, to be honest.

Speaker: 00:16:38

Again, that is the narrative we're always fed.

Speaker: 00:16:41

Whenever you see births on TV.

Speaker: 00:16:45

Mm-hmm.

Speaker: 00:16:46

Or you read about them any sort of talk about that is this incredible

Speaker: 00:16:50

endorphin rush when you're like, "oh my God, my baby, I'm so in love!"

Speaker: 00:16:55

And I certainly didn't have that.

Speaker: 00:16:58

I just felt really numb and...

Speaker: 00:17:00

Yeah, Yeah numb, that's a good word.

Speaker: 00:17:02

Yeah, and so many people that I've spoken to in this podcast,

Speaker: 00:17:07

and I think I've recorded about 42, 43 episodes now, and

Speaker: 00:17:14

I think there's only 1, 2, 3 people that said they had that.

Speaker: 00:17:18

Mm-hmm.

Speaker: 00:17:19

just goes to show, actually, it's okay if you don't get those feelings

Speaker: 00:17:23

because they do come eventually and it's not as normal to expect that.

Speaker: 00:17:29

That's, you know, one of the reasons why I wanted to do

Speaker: 00:17:31

this podcast was to try and dispel some of these myths.

Speaker: 00:17:35

And you're right, don't panic.

Speaker: 00:17:37

They come.

Speaker: 00:17:37

They just come gradually and you warm up to it, and you get to know your

Speaker: 00:17:41

baby better, and the bond is there.

Speaker: 00:17:44

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker: 00:17:45

And for anybody that has trouble or difficulty bonding with their baby

Speaker: 00:17:51

now, there's a really great episode.

Speaker: 00:17:53

If you listen to episode one from series one of Blue MumDays,

Speaker: 00:17:59

you'll hear an episode with Liz Wise who had very severe bonding

Speaker: 00:18:03

issues with her daughter, Emma.

Speaker: 00:18:05

And we actually bring Emma on, who's now a mother herself at the end, and

Speaker: 00:18:11

they talk about what an incredible close relationship they have now.

Speaker: 00:18:15

So it does come, and don't worry, you will absolutely get there.

Speaker: 00:18:19

Just keep going.

Speaker: 00:18:20

And again, loads of support links in the show notes.

Speaker: 00:18:25

So... I'd love to keep just talking to you for ages about your own

Speaker: 00:18:29

experience, but what made you decide you wanted to become a breastfeeding

Speaker: 00:18:34

counsellor or lactation consultant?

Speaker: 00:18:37

I think, to be honest, I partly had the idea when I was looking

Speaker: 00:18:40

for a lactation consultant.

Speaker: 00:18:42

To a certain extent it seemed a natural follow from being a nanny.

Speaker: 00:18:49

You know, you can be a nanny for a certain length of time and

Speaker: 00:18:51

then you have your own children and nannying at that time... I

Speaker: 00:18:54

mean I was very well paid and I'd gone quite far in my profession.

Speaker: 00:18:58

I took one child to work with me, but then when I had the second,

Speaker: 00:19:01

I stopped doing it because taking two children to work with me,

Speaker: 00:19:05

long hours was just a bit much.

Speaker: 00:19:07

So I was thinking what to do next, that sort of follows

Speaker: 00:19:10

on naturally from that.

Speaker: 00:19:12

But also the experience... I just find it such an interesting topic.

Speaker: 00:19:16

There's an awful lot more to be learned.

Speaker: 00:19:19

We are always discovering new evidence behind breastfeeding.

Speaker: 00:19:23

And I'd like to say I'm nosy!

Speaker: 00:19:26

I should probably spin it and say "I'm just a curious person

Speaker: 00:19:28

who loves to meet people".

Speaker: 00:19:31

There is a part of it where I just, I used to want to be

Speaker: 00:19:33

a doula as well or a midwife.

Speaker: 00:19:35

And I think there is an element of it where you are invited

Speaker: 00:19:40

into a brand new family in those super special, really early days.

Speaker: 00:19:44

People are just really honest with you and speak with you

Speaker: 00:19:46

about their feelings and everything that's been going on.

Speaker: 00:19:49

And I'm really grateful for that and I really value that side of it.

Speaker: 00:19:52

So that's partly I think, how I got into it.

Speaker: 00:19:56

And so how long was the training?

Speaker: 00:19:59

because it's a very complex subject, so how long does

Speaker: 00:20:02

it take you to train?

Speaker: 00:20:04

It's complicated.

Speaker: 00:20:06

It took a few years, but there's different paths to it.

Speaker: 00:20:09

because I'm not a health visitor or midwife, I had to go... I was

Speaker: 00:20:15

doing breastfeeding counsellor anyway, which I trained - we're

Speaker: 00:20:18

both Lambeth mums aren't we?

Speaker: 00:20:20

- in Lambeth to do the breastfeeding support in Lambeth, in the

Speaker: 00:20:23

children's centres and the hospital.

Speaker: 00:20:25

And then you have to do 90 hours of lactation focused education.

Speaker: 00:20:31

So that's very niche.

Speaker: 00:20:33

The course I did was actually 130, and I did loads of others

Speaker: 00:20:36

as well, because you have to do continuing professional education.

Speaker: 00:20:39

So I did a lot of other things.

Speaker: 00:20:41

And then 12 short courses in things like biology and childcare and ethics

Speaker: 00:20:50

and counselling, medical terminology.

Speaker: 00:20:53

Loads of short courses and things like that, which is to counterbalance

Speaker: 00:20:57

the fact that you're not from a medical professional background.

Speaker: 00:21:00

And then you have to log a thousand hours of helping families, which is

Speaker: 00:21:05

a bit like, you know, when pilots are learning to fly and they have

Speaker: 00:21:07

to log their flying hours, or if you're qualifying to scuba dive, you

Speaker: 00:21:10

have to log your hours underwater.

Speaker: 00:21:12

It's like that.

Speaker: 00:21:13

You're just like logging time face to face, helping families,

Speaker: 00:21:17

which I actually think is one of the most valuable bits.

Speaker: 00:21:23

Every family's different and all those tiny nuances of every

Speaker: 00:21:26

little baby and the shape of their mouth and the way they

Speaker: 00:21:28

behave and their temperament.

Speaker: 00:21:30

It's just different from family to family.

Speaker: 00:21:33

It's very nuanced then.

Speaker: 00:21:35

You know, there is no one size fits all.

Speaker: 00:21:38

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:21:38

And I didn't mention the four hour exam, to do the four hour exams!

Speaker: 00:21:42

Wow.

Speaker: 00:21:43

Okay.

Speaker: 00:21:44

And you go completely square eyed at one stage - I'll embarrass

Speaker: 00:21:48

myself now - well you get like a... I can't remember how much

Speaker: 00:21:50

it is, but you get something like a five minute break once.

Speaker: 00:21:54

And you have to go through this I D checking and they check

Speaker: 00:21:56

your glasses for cameras and check your sleeves and stuff.

Speaker: 00:21:59

So there's very little time.

Speaker: 00:22:00

And there was a scene where I was sitting on the toilet doing

Speaker: 00:22:03

a wee and eating a Mars Bar at the same time with the door open.

Speaker: 00:22:08

Somebody I trained with came in and went, "oh, sorry!" And

Speaker: 00:22:10

I was like, "I've only got three and a half minutes!"

Speaker: 00:22:16

Oh, that's amazing.

Speaker: 00:22:18

That's an image burnt into my retina right there, thanks Sally!

Speaker: 00:22:21

There you go, lovely.

Speaker: 00:22:23

Just for you Vikki!

Speaker: 00:22:24

And so when you first qualified, was it scary going out to families

Speaker: 00:22:30

and that sense of responsibility to help them with feeding?

Speaker: 00:22:35

Yes.

Speaker: 00:22:36

There was a lot of the job that was just really parallel to

Speaker: 00:22:39

what I'd already been doing.

Speaker: 00:22:41

Yeah, the actual going one-to-one.

Speaker: 00:22:45

I'm lucky as well that I am in a group of Lactation

Speaker: 00:22:49

Consultants of Great Britain.

Speaker: 00:22:50

We have a big South East London group, so there is an

Speaker: 00:22:54

element there of supervision.

Speaker: 00:22:55

You can ask the family's permission to check in with a

Speaker: 00:22:58

colleague if you're not sure about something or whatever.

Speaker: 00:23:01

And you can ask other lactation consultants who have like some

Speaker: 00:23:05

of them speech and language practitioners or special

Speaker: 00:23:07

care baby nurses or if you've got any questions, there's

Speaker: 00:23:10

always someone you can go to.

Speaker: 00:23:12

And it's even, it's part of the job.

Speaker: 00:23:14

And I think it's a good thing that it's written in the paperwork that

Speaker: 00:23:19

families sign that you may need to ask a colleague and you may

Speaker: 00:23:22

need to refer on and you may look something up and come back to them.

Speaker: 00:23:25

And I think that's the correct way to work as well.

Speaker: 00:23:27

You don't want to be be just thinking, "oh yeah, that

Speaker: 00:23:30

sounds about right", and making something up on the spot.

Speaker: 00:23:33

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:23:34

What would you say are the three biggest issues that you come up with?

Speaker: 00:23:39

Ooh, good question.

Speaker: 00:23:41

I would say, I don't know, because I see such a skewed population.

Speaker: 00:23:45

I obviously just see the people that are really struggling.

Speaker: 00:23:49

It does feel, well not always, that are really struggling, but people

Speaker: 00:23:52

that feel they need a lactation consultant, does feel like a

Speaker: 00:23:56

lot of babies have tongue-tie or tongue-tie like symptoms.

Speaker: 00:24:02

Uh, that's a bit of can of worms.

Speaker: 00:24:04

There's two more I suppose, one would be that sort of cascade of birth

Speaker: 00:24:09

interventions where one thing leads to another Babies that are born by a

Speaker: 00:24:13

ceasarean, their mother normally has that experience of her milk coming

Speaker: 00:24:17

in a good bit later maybe - 48 or 72 hours after someone who's had a

Speaker: 00:24:24

vaginal birth, that's a long time to be waiting for the plentiful milk.

Speaker: 00:24:26

Ah, I didn't realise that.

Speaker: 00:24:28

Yeah, it's a natural biological thing about your placenta leaving

Speaker: 00:24:32

your body and the hormone surge.

Speaker: 00:24:34

So things like caesarean and or forceps and episiotomies and

Speaker: 00:24:39

everybody being very ill after birth, parents and babies, for instance.

Speaker: 00:24:44

Often one thing leads to another and if a baby's had something

Speaker: 00:24:48

like if they've been in breach position, and maybe they've

Speaker: 00:24:50

had a c-section or a forceps delivery, and then that causes

Speaker: 00:24:54

some element of damage and delay.

Speaker: 00:24:56

And one thing causes another problem.

Speaker: 00:24:59

But I would also say super common is just a lack of familiarity

Speaker: 00:25:04

with normal baby behavior.

Speaker: 00:25:07

Because, I don't know about you, but a lot of us, our mothers and

Speaker: 00:25:12

our grandmothers have actually been formula feeders and or have read

Speaker: 00:25:16

those more strict parenting books.

Speaker: 00:25:18

And I remember my own grandmother saying, "oh, you just leave a baby

Speaker: 00:25:22

in the garden, and they'll have a big cry and it'll open up lungs!"

Speaker: 00:25:26

Actually really out of date advice.

Speaker: 00:25:28

But I think that a lot of parents worry when babies

Speaker: 00:25:32

are being completely normal.

Speaker: 00:25:34

Like "my baby won't sleep independently".

Speaker: 00:25:37

"My baby has a feed and still wants to be on my body".

Speaker: 00:25:41

"My baby has a feed and then appears hungry only 30 minutes later".

Speaker: 00:25:44

This is actually all really normal but parents are nervous of tuning

Speaker: 00:25:49

into their intuition and just following the baby because they're

Speaker: 00:25:52

unfamiliar with that kind of thing.

Speaker: 00:25:54

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: 00:25:54

And tongue-tie.

Speaker: 00:25:55

So that I remember that being talked about all the time.

Speaker: 00:25:59

For anybody that doesn't know what tongue-tie is or how it

Speaker: 00:26:02

presents, are you able to tell us a little bit about that?

Speaker: 00:26:06

Tongue-tie is under your tongue, there is a little membrane

Speaker: 00:26:10

normally that looks a bit like this stringy bit there.

Speaker: 00:26:14

That's your frenulum.

Speaker: 00:26:16

You can probably feel your labial frenulum between your

Speaker: 00:26:19

front teeth front of your gum.

Speaker: 00:26:21

There's your labial frenulum.

Speaker: 00:26:24

A little,

Speaker: 00:26:24

yeah.

Speaker: 00:26:26

and some babies have this under the tongue to the point where

Speaker: 00:26:30

their tongue can barely lift.

Speaker: 00:26:32

Sometimes you need to like gently put your fingers under the

Speaker: 00:26:34

tongue and lift a bit to expose it, but there may or may not be

Speaker: 00:26:37

something there and it may or may not be causing a problem.

Speaker: 00:26:42

Like if this is the nipple or your baby's sucking a finger

Speaker: 00:26:44

and this is the finger, we would hope the tongue would be

Speaker: 00:26:46

underneath doing like a wave-like movement and keeping in contact.

Speaker: 00:26:52

But when baby's tongue movements are quite restricted, the tongue

Speaker: 00:26:56

basically like batters up and down underneath, losing contact.

Speaker: 00:27:00

Or worst case scenario, you get this like rubbing across

Speaker: 00:27:03

the front of the nipple.

Speaker: 00:27:05

Sometimes I'll meet mothers and the actual face of the front of the

Speaker: 00:27:08

nipple, you can see that it's like it's been really sandpapered by the

Speaker: 00:27:12

back of the tongue rubbing there.

Speaker: 00:27:14

That's painful.

Speaker: 00:27:15

Which are really complicated though.

Speaker: 00:27:18

Like there's questions around is it overdiagnosed or is it actually

Speaker: 00:27:22

something about jaw tension, and or the way babies are born makes

Speaker: 00:27:26

them a bit tight or their shoulders high and their neck is back.

Speaker: 00:27:31

It's a complicated question.

Speaker: 00:27:32

Like, I've just realised that I did loads of visual stuff there and

Speaker: 00:27:36

some people might be just listening

Speaker: 00:27:37

No, it was brilliant.

Speaker: 00:27:38

because I could use that for like a, little video clip.

Speaker: 00:27:41

But all, all the time you were doing that I was admiring your

Speaker: 00:27:44

upper arms - they're so buff!

Speaker: 00:27:46

because

Speaker: 00:27:48

No, they used to be!

Speaker: 00:27:48

You don't have bingo wings like I do!

Speaker: 00:27:52

That was tongue-tie.

Speaker: 00:27:56

I remember at the time of me having Stanley, there was a

Speaker: 00:27:59

lot of talk about colostrum.

Speaker: 00:28:01

That's the thing that you have sort of in the initial early hours

Speaker: 00:28:06

of being mum and your milk coming through, and that if you can get

Speaker: 00:28:11

a little bit of that into them, even if you can't then go on to

Speaker: 00:28:14

breastfeed fully, that has lots of goodness in it for the baby.

Speaker: 00:28:19

Yeah, there's loads of value in colostrum.

Speaker: 00:28:23

It has been proven that it's safe to hand express your colostrum

Speaker: 00:28:26

from 37 weeks, for most people.

Speaker: 00:28:30

Obviously check with your midwife, your medical history, if it

Speaker: 00:28:33

suits you, but many people can hand express colostrum and just

Speaker: 00:28:38

collect it in little syringes and put them in your freezer.

Speaker: 00:28:41

So you've got a stash of it even before your baby arrives.

Speaker: 00:28:44

Oh wow, I had never heard of that.

Speaker: 00:28:47

Yeah, it's actually meant to be taught to every pregnant person in

Speaker: 00:28:52

the U K, but it seems to be a bit of a postcode lottery, or some people

Speaker: 00:28:56

just get sort of sent a YouTube video on the subject rather than

Speaker: 00:28:59

actually actively shown how to do it and given the syringes and so on.

Speaker: 00:29:03

So you can, if you're interested to, hand express colostrum and collect

Speaker: 00:29:08

it and or just learn the skill.

Speaker: 00:29:11

Because if your baby arrives, and they end up having a bit of

Speaker: 00:29:15

a sugar dip, or they're unusually small or early, or they get

Speaker: 00:29:18

separated from you for some reason, then it's great to have a stash

Speaker: 00:29:22

of syringes in the background.

Speaker: 00:29:23

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:29:24

Actually, it's normal for the breast milk to really transition to much

Speaker: 00:29:29

more drippy, ample milk at about 48 hours, maybe 72 hours it can be.

Speaker: 00:29:35

So there's a long time that babies are generally drinking colostrum.

Speaker: 00:29:39

Right.

Speaker: 00:29:39

Oh wow, that's fascinating.

Speaker: 00:29:41

I had no idea.

Speaker: 00:29:43

And I still remember in my naivety, I remember a friend saying " has

Speaker: 00:29:48

your breast milk come in yet?" And I'm like, "Oh, I don't know, how

Speaker: 00:29:52

do you tell?" And then suddenly your breasts turn to like bricks!

Speaker: 00:29:58

And you wake up feeling like a human cartoon and you don't

Speaker: 00:30:01

even recognise yourself!

Speaker: 00:30:02

Oh my God, yeah!

Speaker: 00:30:04

And I, I like you had an oversupply issue.

Speaker: 00:30:07

I remember, I'd just stayed one night in hospital and a nurse said,

Speaker: 00:30:11

looking at me and just going, "oh my God, you could wet nurse the

Speaker: 00:30:15

entire floor, labour ward!" And I was like, "is that a good thing?

Speaker: 00:30:20

I don't know!"

Speaker: 00:30:21

What about sort of common issues like with latch?

Speaker: 00:30:25

I mean, and I know that's going to be really hard to talk

Speaker: 00:30:27

about on a podcast, because there are so many different

Speaker: 00:30:30

ways to like position a baby.

Speaker: 00:30:33

But is there any general advice you could offer?

Speaker: 00:30:36

My top tip would be, it's very, very common.

Speaker: 00:30:40

Just if you watch a few videos or in the postnatal ward or

Speaker: 00:30:43

whatever, where people will tell you to hold your baby's head.

Speaker: 00:30:48

Wait till they do a big open mouth and then just kind of swoop them

Speaker: 00:30:51

onto the nipple as if you're,

Speaker: 00:30:53

Oh

Speaker: 00:30:54

Oh Gosh I remember!

Speaker: 00:30:55

Do you remember this?

Speaker: 00:30:56

And this is, I'm sorry, it's unwelcome information, but I don't

Speaker: 00:31:00

actually think that's the best way.

Speaker: 00:31:02

I think it's much better to be much more baby led if you can, and just

Speaker: 00:31:07

take it back to maybe laying back on a couple of pillows on an angle

Speaker: 00:31:12

and allowing your baby to be sort of on your chest and they will just

Speaker: 00:31:15

move around and find their way.

Speaker: 00:31:18

Of course, there are some babies that need more help, and there's

Speaker: 00:31:21

some mothers with other shaped bodies that doesn't always work for them.

Speaker: 00:31:24

But as a general rule, I think anything where you're not shoving

Speaker: 00:31:29

the baby around and being rough with them, and there's no need to ever

Speaker: 00:31:33

be really grabbing a baby's head.

Speaker: 00:31:35

You can support their shoulders or hold them firmly, but they

Speaker: 00:31:39

much prefer to feel stable.

Speaker: 00:31:41

They prefer to feel like they're on top.

Speaker: 00:31:44

And they get their hands involved and they have their

Speaker: 00:31:46

feet stable and they can move and do little press up positions.

Speaker: 00:31:50

It sounds like a revolution.

Speaker: 00:31:52

I remember when I first heard about it and I felt like it was

Speaker: 00:31:55

the opposite of a lot of things I'd learned, but it's actually

Speaker: 00:31:59

the original biological norm.

Speaker: 00:32:01

And as, as you were saying our mum's generation, probably a lot of

Speaker: 00:32:06

us were up on bottles and formula.

Speaker: 00:32:10

And also because, we are not living together as, you know, wide

Speaker: 00:32:14

family units in the way that we used to in previous generations.

Speaker: 00:32:18

So again, you're probably not witnessing that as much as

Speaker: 00:32:22

we would've done in the past.

Speaker: 00:32:23

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:32:23

That's what I think.

Speaker: 00:32:24

It comes back to that comment about people being unfamiliar with

Speaker: 00:32:27

normal breastfed baby behaviour.

Speaker: 00:32:29

Just because a lot of people literally have never held a baby

Speaker: 00:32:32

before they have their own baby.

Speaker: 00:32:34

You're just not brought up... In a community full of people

Speaker: 00:32:37

breastfeeding, you would always be seeing other mothers doing it

Speaker: 00:32:40

and noticing the little tweaks where they get the chin away

Speaker: 00:32:43

from the chest or just adjust themselves or whatever they need

Speaker: 00:32:46

to do, we are missing out on it.

Speaker: 00:32:48

And again, that makes perfect sense to encourage the baby to

Speaker: 00:32:52

come to you rather than you forcing yourself on the baby.

Speaker: 00:32:55

because yeah.

Speaker: 00:32:57

You know, when you think... and especially like you and I had

Speaker: 00:33:00

oversupply issues, you can totally understand why the baby at times

Speaker: 00:33:05

would be like, "oh my god, turn that know, turn fire hose off!"

Speaker: 00:33:08

Yeah, they get panicked, don't they?

Speaker: 00:33:10

When there's too much milk.

Speaker: 00:33:11

And especially if the baby's in like a classic cradle hold, like

Speaker: 00:33:14

a dolly or a formula fed baby, you want them to... nobody pressing

Speaker: 00:33:19

their head be able to move around if they want, feel in control.

Speaker: 00:33:22

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:33:23

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:33:24

what about those women that have supply issues where they

Speaker: 00:33:28

aren't producing enough milk?

Speaker: 00:33:30

What advice can you offer them?

Speaker: 00:33:33

Is there anything that they can do?

Speaker: 00:33:35

Yes, there is, but there's lots of things to be considered because

Speaker: 00:33:41

I would be most interested to know is there really not enough milk

Speaker: 00:33:45

or is that just the perception?

Speaker: 00:33:46

because it's super common to feel that there's not enough milk,

Speaker: 00:33:49

because the baby doesn't want to lay down on their own or something.

Speaker: 00:33:53

Which is babies doing babies!

Speaker: 00:33:55

But if there's not enough milk and we've established that

Speaker: 00:33:59

there's not, then there could be actually some quite complex

Speaker: 00:34:02

medical questions to be asked.

Speaker: 00:34:04

Like, how are that mother's hormone levels?

Speaker: 00:34:07

What was her birth experience?

Speaker: 00:34:08

Has she experienced blood loss?

Speaker: 00:34:10

Does she have a thyroid condition?

Speaker: 00:34:11

Is there some kind of insulin resistance?

Speaker: 00:34:14

Sort of a whole another range of questions, some of which is within

Speaker: 00:34:18

my remit and some of which isn't.

Speaker: 00:34:21

So I'd often be writing to a mother's G P (General Practitioner)

Speaker: 00:34:24

with her, or sharing some information for her to bring to her

Speaker: 00:34:28

consultant or something like that.

Speaker: 00:34:31

You can build more breast milk supply often.

Speaker: 00:34:35

It's often a really unwelcome plan, including loads of breast

Speaker: 00:34:40

pumping or triple feeding.

Speaker: 00:34:42

Oh God I remember!

Speaker: 00:34:44

Do you remember this?

Speaker: 00:34:45

Oh, yeah, just even the thought of the breast pump - I can see it.

Speaker: 00:34:49

I can see the branding and I can hear the sound of and it

Speaker: 00:34:54

makes me feel a bit sick inside.

Speaker: 00:34:56

That's interesting because I meet some mums and they're pregnant

Speaker: 00:35:00

with their second or third.

Speaker: 00:35:02

And as soon as we talk about breast pumping, they're just like, "I am

Speaker: 00:35:05

not going to do that again. I'm still traumatised by the breast

Speaker: 00:35:08

pumping the first time! Like if I need to go down that route,

Speaker: 00:35:11

then we'll just move away from breastfeeding." Which is perfectly

Speaker: 00:35:14

reasonable, that's up to them to say.

Speaker: 00:35:17

But things have moved on a heck of a lot since then.

Speaker: 00:35:20

because you can get bras now where you can actually move

Speaker: 00:35:21

around rather than being sort of locked into position like on

Speaker: 00:35:25

a sofa for a couple of hours.

Speaker: 00:35:26

Yes.

Speaker: 00:35:28

Honestly, their first, I feel like it's quite a new thing.

Speaker: 00:35:31

The first, it's called wearable pump rather than portable pump.

Speaker: 00:35:35

We now have wearable pumps where the pump fits in your bra.

Speaker: 00:35:39

They're not as powerful as the best pumps because the motor

Speaker: 00:35:43

actually fits in your bra.

Speaker: 00:35:44

So there's a reason why they're not that powerful.

Speaker: 00:35:46

But I'm a bit embarrassed to think of how long we've had breast pumps

Speaker: 00:35:50

in this world, that it took all those years for someone to say,

Speaker: 00:35:54

"why don't we make one that's not noisy, fits in your bra and you

Speaker: 00:35:59

can do other things while doing"... That's completely revolutionary

Speaker: 00:36:04

not to have to be next to a power socket with both your hands involved.

Speaker: 00:36:07

It is like when they put wheels on suitcases and you're like, " how

Speaker: 00:36:11

did nobody think of this before?"

Speaker: 00:36:13

I know one could get quite political and say it's the patriarchy and

Speaker: 00:36:17

the fact that nobody invests in women's health and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker: 00:36:21

It's really bad that it took us that long to come up with the design

Speaker: 00:36:24

and now there's loads of them.

Speaker: 00:36:25

All the manufacturers are making them and they're making them better

Speaker: 00:36:27

and better and much more affordable.

Speaker: 00:36:29

I was going to say, would it be appropriate to have links, if there

Speaker: 00:36:34

are particular brands that you recommend, for pumps or anything

Speaker: 00:36:39

else, you know, nipple cream, nipple shields, would it be appropriate

Speaker: 00:36:43

to put those in the show notes?

Speaker: 00:36:45

That's a really good question.

Speaker: 00:36:46

There's very little that I can recommend because as an I B C L C,

Speaker: 00:36:51

for our Code of Conduct, we can't recommend any company that breaks

Speaker: 00:36:55

the World Health Organization code for their breast milk substitute

Speaker: 00:37:00

advertising, which is sort of formula and bottles advertising.

Speaker: 00:37:05

But, because of the way companies are these days, they're all like

Speaker: 00:37:08

under umbrellas of other companies and so on, and all the formula

Speaker: 00:37:11

companies are generally stitched up with companies that sell bottles

Speaker: 00:37:16

and companies that make pumps.

Speaker: 00:37:18

There's very little that I can recommend, so as an  I B C L C,

Speaker: 00:37:22

sometimes I've got like anonymised pictures of some favourite things.

Speaker: 00:37:26

And I am allowed to share the information with a family.

Speaker: 00:37:29

If there's no other product that will do, I can say, "this is the

Speaker: 00:37:32

product and I can show you how to use it" and so on, but I can't be

Speaker: 00:37:35

seen to be endorsing it or anything.

Speaker: 00:37:37

It's really complicated and it's a big problem because some parents are

Speaker: 00:37:41

just like, "just tell me what to buy.

Speaker: 00:37:43

I'm mentally exhausted!" You're like, "well tell me what

Speaker: 00:37:46

colour it is and I'll nod!"

Speaker: 00:37:48

(Laughs).

Speaker: 00:37:49

What does the I C B L C actually stand for?

Speaker: 00:37:52

International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.

Speaker: 00:37:57

So actually anyone can call themself a lactation consultant,

Speaker: 00:38:01

a breastfeeding counsellor or a breastfeeding specialist.

Speaker: 00:38:03

They're not protected terms.

Speaker: 00:38:06

So it's the I C B L C that's actually got a Code of Conduct and insurance

Speaker: 00:38:10

and proper qualifications, continuing professional education, scope

Speaker: 00:38:15

of practice, that sort of thing.

Speaker: 00:38:17

Wow, okay.

Speaker: 00:38:19

One of the things that I certainly experienced when I was struggling

Speaker: 00:38:24

with breastfeeding was this sense of... and again, I completely

Speaker: 00:38:29

understand, why there is this mantra that "breast is best".

Speaker: 00:38:33

because, you know, most people want to breastfeed and, you know,

Speaker: 00:38:39

really hope that they can, but for one reason or another aren't

Speaker: 00:38:43

successful or aren't getting the support that they need.

Speaker: 00:38:47

And there's a lot of guilt and shame tied into that.

Speaker: 00:38:51

And I know certainly when I had Stanley, you were definitely

Speaker: 00:38:57

beaten with a birch twig, and made to feel very, very guilty

Speaker: 00:39:01

if you weren't breastfeeding.

Speaker: 00:39:02

Or were considering mixed feeding or giving up altogether.

Speaker: 00:39:07

And one thing I want to say that, you know, as far as I'm

Speaker: 00:39:11

concerned, however you feed your baby is your choice and up to you.

Speaker: 00:39:15

And it's all good, as long as you're feeding your baby, that is great.

Speaker: 00:39:20

And you know I feel that there should be a lot more empathy

Speaker: 00:39:23

towards women, because it can be very impactful on your mental

Speaker: 00:39:29

health, you know, whether you get that support that you need or not.

Speaker: 00:39:33

I mean, what's your feeling towards mixed feeding?

Speaker: 00:39:36

You know, your own personal opinion?

Speaker: 00:39:38

So I'm really happy to support families with whatever they

Speaker: 00:39:43

want to feed their baby.

Speaker: 00:39:45

And some people do actually hire me and say, "I need you to come because

Speaker: 00:39:49

I need to stop breastfeeding, and I've got all this milk, and how

Speaker: 00:39:52

do I gradually manage it down?" Or "I need to introduce bottles.

Speaker: 00:39:56

I need to start mixing."

Speaker: 00:39:58

And I'll say "Yep, excellent.

Speaker: 00:40:00

I'll come and sit with you.

Speaker: 00:40:01

We'll talk about your goals.

Speaker: 00:40:02

We'll talk about what's happened.

Speaker: 00:40:03

We'll make a plan for you to stop or taper it off, or whatever you

Speaker: 00:40:07

need to do." So of course I am really happy to help whatever

Speaker: 00:40:11

someone's breastfeeding goals are.

Speaker: 00:40:13

There is some slightly unwelcome information, which I don't

Speaker: 00:40:17

always share it with parents if they've already been mixed

Speaker: 00:40:19

feeding, but there is a reason why exclusive breastfeeding

Speaker: 00:40:24

is, in theory, the best.

Speaker: 00:40:26

It's the gold standard, exclusive breastfeeding for the first six

Speaker: 00:40:29

months, and that's all about the health of our microbiome.

Speaker: 00:40:33

But if any family need or want to mix some formula in there,

Speaker: 00:40:37

then I'm very happy to help them.

Speaker: 00:40:40

I got asked once to write a blog about mixed feeding and I put

Speaker: 00:40:48

on my social media and so on.

Speaker: 00:40:50

I put a few messages asking if anybody had any experience of mixed

Speaker: 00:40:54

feeding, that they would welcome to drop me a voice note or an email

Speaker: 00:40:57

or let me know their thoughts.

Speaker: 00:40:59

And it was so popular and I got so many replies.

Speaker: 00:41:04

It was a big surprise to me and lots of people felt really strongly.

Speaker: 00:41:08

They said, "this is like a dirty secret that nobody talks about, this

Speaker: 00:41:11

mixed feeding. You are made to feel that it's got to be all or nothing

Speaker: 00:41:15

and you're either in the formula club or you are a breastfeeding

Speaker: 00:41:19

mum and you can't be in between".

Speaker: 00:41:23

Yes.

Speaker: 00:41:24

And so many of the answers that I got, I thought it was

Speaker: 00:41:27

going to be more like "I tried completely breastfeeding and

Speaker: 00:41:32

I didn't have enough milk", or "my baby was ill or something

Speaker: 00:41:35

and therefore we formula fed."

Speaker: 00:41:37

But loads of the answers were "we were completely breastfeeding and

Speaker: 00:41:42

the weight upon my shoulders, the fact that it was only me knowing

Speaker: 00:41:46

that I was completely responsible for the calories that this baby

Speaker: 00:41:50

needed to grow. It was all too much. Therefore we introduced a bottle".

Speaker: 00:41:55

Or "therefore we started using more formula." And loads of families said

Speaker: 00:42:00

that they would've stopped if it hadn't been for taking the pressure

Speaker: 00:42:03

off by being able to just add a little bit of formula into the mix.

Speaker: 00:42:06

They actually breastfed for longer they felt, because they'd

Speaker: 00:42:09

been able to mix it up and it wasn't all on them, which

Speaker: 00:42:12

I found really interesting.

Speaker: 00:42:13

interesting I hadn't imagined that that would happen.

Speaker: 00:42:17

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:42:17

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:42:18

I mean, gosh, I can relate to that feeling of, "oh my gosh, this little

Speaker: 00:42:22

baby it's on my shoulders to keep them alive." And because Stanley was

Speaker: 00:42:28

very little anyway, I was having a lot of pressure put on me to keep

Speaker: 00:42:33

feeding him, keep feeding him.

Speaker: 00:42:35

Yeah, this is a common thing as well.

Speaker: 00:42:37

When you have a small baby, it feels like there's no margin for error, and

Speaker: 00:42:40

you can be under a lot of pressure to get them weighed regularly, and

Speaker: 00:42:44

then those weighing appointments become very onerous and stressful.

Speaker: 00:42:48

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:42:49

At least with a bottle, you can see exactly how much

Speaker: 00:42:53

milk they're ingesting.

Speaker: 00:42:54

I mean, there would be days when it would seem like Stan was feeding

Speaker: 00:42:57

on me for like five hours, but you don't know how much quality

Speaker: 00:43:00

milk he was actually getting.

Speaker: 00:43:03

That's the other because you know, sometimes they just like to hang

Speaker: 00:43:06

around there and just comfort suckle.

Speaker: 00:43:09

Lots of families really struggle with that, that if they have been

Speaker: 00:43:12

using bottles and they're going to try and move more to breast,

Speaker: 00:43:15

or if there's been a few bottles in the mix, then families are just

Speaker: 00:43:19

like, "but when I give the baby a bottle, I've got an actual number

Speaker: 00:43:22

and I can write it down and enter it into my app: 12 o'clock 60 ml!"

Speaker: 00:43:26

And it's very satisfying to be able to do, whereas... I do try always

Speaker: 00:43:31

to educate the people I support to know is the baby actually swallowing?

Speaker: 00:43:36

We look at the sucking, we look at the swallowing, we look

Speaker: 00:43:39

at the sucking and swallowing ratio to try and judge the feed.

Speaker: 00:43:43

But yeah, you are right, ultimately you are just waiting for the

Speaker: 00:43:46

nappies and then waiting even longer for the weight gain.

Speaker: 00:43:49

It's not as satisfying as being able to just write it

Speaker: 00:43:51

down and know what the baby had if you are a bit anxious.

Speaker: 00:43:55

So what can you look for then to see if they're

Speaker: 00:43:58

actually swallowing quality?

Speaker: 00:44:00

Or is that too complicated to go over in a chat?

Speaker: 00:44:03

There's actually a film from Global Health Media,

Speaker: 00:44:06

I could share it with you.

Speaker: 00:44:08

Please!

Speaker: 00:44:09

I think it's called 'Is Your Baby Getting Enough Milk?' And there's

Speaker: 00:44:11

a bit from two minutes to four minutes where they show all these

Speaker: 00:44:14

different babies and they show closeups of their throat moving.

Speaker: 00:44:19

And the fact that their throat goes like gently, gently.

Speaker: 00:44:23

A little movement, a little movement, a little movement,

Speaker: 00:44:25

and then a big slow gulp.

Speaker: 00:44:27

And when you pinpoint the differences, especially parents

Speaker: 00:44:30

might send me a film of their baby, or I might sit with them and say,

Speaker: 00:44:34

"look, here we go: three sucks to each swallow, three sucks to each

Speaker: 00:44:38

swallow, four sucks to each swallow.

Speaker: 00:44:39

The milk is slowing down.

Speaker: 00:44:40

Oh, now you're having a rush of oxytocin suck- swallow

Speaker: 00:44:44

ratio is really one-to-one.

Speaker: 00:44:46

Hear the little breathing noise?" I try and commentate

Speaker: 00:44:49

it to give them confidence so they can see the difference.

Speaker: 00:44:53

do to, like, you might do a little breast compression

Speaker: 00:44:55

or make an adjustment and then the ratio improves and

Speaker: 00:44:59

you can see what's working.

Speaker: 00:45:01

Oh, amazing.

Speaker: 00:45:03

Gosh, that sounds brilliant.

Speaker: 00:45:04

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:45:04

If we could put that into the shownotes.

Speaker: 00:45:06

I've got lots of favourite resources like that.

Speaker: 00:45:08

So,

Speaker: 00:45:09

Oh, amazing!

Speaker: 00:45:11

What about things like mastitis and blocked ducts and common problems

Speaker: 00:45:16

like that, that can come up?

Speaker: 00:45:18

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:45:19

Um, this is going to be very nerdy because last year there

Speaker: 00:45:22

was a new treatment protocol on mastitis from the Academy

Speaker: 00:45:27

of Breastfeeding Medicine.

Speaker: 00:45:28

And it's actually a complete reverse of a lot of the

Speaker: 00:45:31

information that used to be shared.

Speaker: 00:45:34

So, what shall I say?

Speaker: 00:45:35

I'll try not to go too deep on the nerding out!

Speaker: 00:45:38

Now we know from, I think they actually dissected pieces of breasts

Speaker: 00:45:42

to find the information, but now we know that the ducts in the breast

Speaker: 00:45:47

are incredibly thin and delicate and totally intertwined with each

Speaker: 00:45:51

other, like a bowl of spaghetti.

Speaker: 00:45:53

So, it's not actually a blockage of milk in your

Speaker: 00:45:57

duct that causes mastitis.

Speaker: 00:46:00

It's much more likely to be inflammation in the area

Speaker: 00:46:03

and oedema around the duct.

Speaker: 00:46:06

What's oedema, for those of us who are non medical?

Speaker: 00:46:09

Oedema is fluids, Like when something's swollen with fluids.

Speaker: 00:46:14

So we are going to change all the information now, and what seems to

Speaker: 00:46:18

be working now is to do anything that really calms the area.

Speaker: 00:46:22

So it's like ice, ibuprofen, gently sweeping fluid away

Speaker: 00:46:27

towards your armpit, stretching out your shoulder, lay on your

Speaker: 00:46:31

back with some ice on yourself.

Speaker: 00:46:33

Things like that to just calm the whole area down.

Speaker: 00:46:36

Whereas previously, and if you Googled it, you might

Speaker: 00:46:38

find the old information.

Speaker: 00:46:40

It used to be like go crazy pumping to get all the milk out.

Speaker: 00:46:43

Yeah, so I had mastitis because I wanted to express more so that

Speaker: 00:46:51

I could have supplies so that my husband Matt could get up in the

Speaker: 00:46:55

night and give Stan milk while I got a bit of rest, because

Speaker: 00:47:00

I was having so little sleep.

Speaker: 00:47:03

And then I don't know whether I was pumping too much and

Speaker: 00:47:05

overstimulated already oversupplied.

Speaker: 00:47:08

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:47:08

You know, the classic!

Speaker: 00:47:10

Very easy to do.

Speaker: 00:47:11

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:47:12

And so I developed mastitis and I had a big problem with

Speaker: 00:47:16

blocked ducts, constantly.

Speaker: 00:47:18

And every time, especially when I had the mastitis and it

Speaker: 00:47:21

literally felt like razor blades.

Speaker: 00:47:23

It was so, so painful.

Speaker: 00:47:25

And I remember reading that I had to feed every two hours,

Speaker: 00:47:28

so even less sleep, even more pain to, to get through it.

Speaker: 00:47:33

And oh my god, that night I think was the darkest night of my life!

Speaker: 00:47:37

It was so painful.

Speaker: 00:47:38

And whenever I got blocked duct, they'd say "you have

Speaker: 00:47:42

to let the baby feed it out".

Speaker: 00:47:44

Yeah, feed even more.

Speaker: 00:47:45

And so I would have to like hold him in crazy positions

Speaker: 00:47:49

like, thrown over my shoulder upside down to relieve certain

Speaker: 00:47:52

blocked ducts that, oh my god!

Speaker: 00:47:54

I wouldn't be advising you to do that anymore, unfortunately.

Speaker: 00:47:58

That is a bit out of date information.

Speaker: 00:48:01

I know what mean though, it's horribly uncomfortable

Speaker: 00:48:03

to have mastitis.

Speaker: 00:48:05

And now in fact, the new protocol has got some new things in it

Speaker: 00:48:08

and a certain amount of evidence that there may be links to mums

Speaker: 00:48:12

being exhausted, which we all know we are exhausted anyway.

Speaker: 00:48:15

And actually stress can be a cause of mastitis.

Speaker: 00:48:19

Ah, yeah, so it all kind of feeds into... Are there any other common

Speaker: 00:48:25

issues that would be helpful to talk about or to educate people on?

Speaker: 00:48:29

Oh, I don't know what, there's so many different things to say.

Speaker: 00:48:32

And also with breastfeeding, there's very rarely a binary answer.

Speaker: 00:48:38

And I think a lot of people expect me to be able to say, well, "yes

Speaker: 00:48:41

or no on dummies, yes or no on pumping, yes or no on having a break

Speaker: 00:48:45

so your partner can give a bottle".

Speaker: 00:48:47

And it is just so nuanced to each individual person.

Speaker: 00:48:51

I think I would say generally be aware that breastfeeding counsellors,

Speaker: 00:48:58

even not an I B C R C, but just a breastfeeding counsellor, someone

Speaker: 00:49:02

who works for a charity or runs your local breastfeeding group,

Speaker: 00:49:06

is highly likely to be more qualified than your midwife or

Speaker: 00:49:10

health visitor or more experienced.

Speaker: 00:49:13

And there can be an awful lot of value as well in going to those

Speaker: 00:49:17

groups just so that you can meet other mothers who've been in the

Speaker: 00:49:20

same situation and speak to other families that have been through

Speaker: 00:49:23

breastfeeding or that are learning about breastfeeding or that their

Speaker: 00:49:26

baby's slightly older than yours or, don't be afraid to ask for help.

Speaker: 00:49:31

And definitely don't think that it's just meant to be painful and that

Speaker: 00:49:36

you'll toughen up if you keep trying.

Speaker: 00:49:38

I often saying it to the families that I meet, because they're

Speaker: 00:49:41

often at a bit of a crisis point, and I'll say to them, "there's

Speaker: 00:49:45

always a plan B, you can stop breastfeeding, you can rest your

Speaker: 00:49:48

nipples for a little while and just pump to a minimum for a short time.

Speaker: 00:49:53

Or feed on the sore one and rest the other one".

Speaker: 00:49:55

We can always put something else in place.

Speaker: 00:49:57

I think it's quite a relief to people to know that they don't

Speaker: 00:50:00

just continue and it's not just a binary "battle on or give up".

Speaker: 00:50:04

There's many different areas in between.

Speaker: 00:50:07

So don't be afraid to ask for help.

Speaker: 00:50:09

Excellent advice.

Speaker: 00:50:11

Cracked and sore or bleeding nipples?

Speaker: 00:50:14

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:50:15

What would you advise for soothing those?

Speaker: 00:50:17

because I think most of us can hold their hands up and say they've

Speaker: 00:50:20

experienced that at some point.

Speaker: 00:50:22

So the best way to solve it is to get better positioning,

Speaker: 00:50:27

to get a better latch.

Speaker: 00:50:28

Well, it's easy to say.

Speaker: 00:50:29

Obviously you need maybe some help and information to help

Speaker: 00:50:32

you get really comfortable.

Speaker: 00:50:34

The little purple tube that is the mainstay of every postnatal ward

Speaker: 00:50:39

has not actually been proven to be any more effective than just putting

Speaker: 00:50:43

your own breast milk on your nipples.

Speaker: 00:50:45

Really?!

Speaker: 00:50:46

Wow, okay.

Speaker: 00:50:48

It is proven though that people like to know that they're doing something,

Speaker: 00:50:52

which is completely understandable.

Speaker: 00:50:54

Like if you're like, "okay, so I've sent my mother and she's

Speaker: 00:50:56

gone to the pharmacy and she's came back with this and this is my

Speaker: 00:50:59

plan", and then it's only natural and normal that we feel better.

Speaker: 00:51:03

"We've got that in place."

Speaker: 00:51:04

If there's general soreness, then just putting a bit of your own

Speaker: 00:51:09

breast milk on, and/or trying to spend some time topless, because

Speaker: 00:51:13

then the air gets to them and your clothes are not rubbing.

Speaker: 00:51:16

If there's cracks, blisters, damage, grazes, then it's a

Speaker: 00:51:22

moist wound healing method.

Speaker: 00:51:24

The evidence we have is silver cups, or Jelonet or hydrogel dressings.

Speaker: 00:51:31

Silver cups?

Speaker: 00:51:32

What are they?

Speaker: 00:51:33

Silver cups are literally little silver - made of silver

Speaker: 00:51:39

- covers that go on your nipple.

Speaker: 00:51:41

It looks like a little hat, and it stops your bra from rubbing.

Speaker: 00:51:45

It keeps your nipple suspended in a bit of milk.

Speaker: 00:51:48

Like a little thimble?

Speaker: 00:51:50

And there's actually like healing qualities in the silver.

Speaker: 00:51:53

They're quite expensive.

Speaker: 00:51:54

They're like 50 pounds or something, but they obviously

Speaker: 00:51:57

last forever and you can pass them onto your neighbour or your

Speaker: 00:51:59

sister or whatever if you want to.

Speaker: 00:52:01

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:52:01

And lots of mums find them really helpful.

Speaker: 00:52:03

There's a study from Italy that actually proves that they work.

Speaker: 00:52:07

Wow, that's fascinating because one of the reasons I gave up,

Speaker: 00:52:10

about eight months in, was because I was having constant blisters

Speaker: 00:52:14

and I would have to burst them with pins just to the pain.

Speaker: 00:52:20

And it just got so much.

Speaker: 00:52:22

So something I wasn't doing right obviously in terms

Speaker: 00:52:25

of latch or something.

Speaker: 00:52:26

You'll sympathise then with like Jelonet and hydrogel

Speaker: 00:52:29

dressings, they work.

Speaker: 00:52:30

It's something that you can buy little ones for nipples,

Speaker: 00:52:33

but they were originally designed for burns victims.

Speaker: 00:52:36

Right.

Speaker: 00:52:37

Like a cooling dressing.

Speaker: 00:52:39

I'm sure you can imagine.

Speaker: 00:52:40

Oh my god that sounds like it would've been heaven!

Speaker: 00:52:43

Exactly what I needed!

Speaker: 00:52:45

And are there any other things that you wish you'd

Speaker: 00:52:48

known in the early days?

Speaker: 00:52:50

To help, either through lived experience or through your

Speaker: 00:52:53

experience as a nanny or as a lactation consultant?

Speaker: 00:52:58

What I wish I personally had known in the early days is I would've

Speaker: 00:53:03

just like, I don't know, given myself a hug and said, "look,

Speaker: 00:53:06

everybody's not watching you and judging you. You're not showing

Speaker: 00:53:10

how professional a nanny you are. It's okay that it's not easy".

Speaker: 00:53:13

And just much more just going with the flow.

Speaker: 00:53:18

I think my first son is quite a sensitive individual and he

Speaker: 00:53:22

just wouldn't be put down and wouldn't do anything with any

Speaker: 00:53:26

kind of rhythm to the day at all.

Speaker: 00:53:28

And I really battled against that and I should have just put him

Speaker: 00:53:32

in like a wrap and slept with him and chilled, not worried.

Speaker: 00:53:37

I had that time pressure as I was like, "oh, I've got to get him back

Speaker: 00:53:40

to work. Got to go back to work by 12 weeks. So he needs to be in a routine

Speaker: 00:53:44

and he needs to be sleeping well" and... it was never going to happen.

Speaker: 00:53:48

My God, that was such a tough thing for you.

Speaker: 00:53:52

I couldn't even imagine what that was like.

Speaker: 00:53:54

You know, that pressure.

Speaker: 00:53:56

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:53:56

But it was self-imposed.

Speaker: 00:53:57

Like you said, we put a pressure on ourselves.

Speaker: 00:54:00

My boss was actually lovely about it, but I just really felt like

Speaker: 00:54:03

I had to make it work and she was watching me and it was a bit of a

Speaker: 00:54:06

gamble, like trying to persuade.

Speaker: 00:54:09

I mean, it was extremely good of her to say, sure, pregnant nanny,

Speaker: 00:54:14

have a baby, and then come back and bring your baby to my house

Speaker: 00:54:17

to spend all day in my house.

Speaker: 00:54:19

So was, it was like a trial period where I had to prove

Speaker: 00:54:23

that it was working, in my mind.

Speaker: 00:54:26

Yeah, I mean, it's always brilliant with the benefit of hindsight.

Speaker: 00:54:29

We can go back and think how, how differently you'd do it.

Speaker: 00:54:32

But I think some of the advice you've given has been golden.

Speaker: 00:54:37

I'm going to Google 'silver cup' straight away, because

Speaker: 00:54:41

they just sound like the most incredible invention!

Speaker: 00:54:43

I'm asked about them often because people say, "well, how can that work?

Speaker: 00:54:47

It must be a gimmick.

Speaker: 00:54:49

They're a gimmick, aren't they?" And I'm like, "no, they're not a gimmick.

Speaker: 00:54:51

They're proven to work."

Speaker: 00:54:52

Wow.

Speaker: 00:54:53

Wow.

Speaker: 00:54:54

But just even the cooling and protective thing.

Speaker: 00:54:57

The theory is, you know that if you have damage, you want

Speaker: 00:55:00

it to heal from the inside out.

Speaker: 00:55:02

You don't want to get a dry hard scab on the outside, baby

Speaker: 00:55:05

will then just just rip that off and cause a new damage.

Speaker: 00:55:08

So you are meant to be keeping everything moist and hydrated.

Speaker: 00:55:12

'Get the healing from the inside out' is optimum.

Speaker: 00:55:15

Hmm, so there's a rationale behind it.

Speaker: 00:55:18

Yeah yeah, it's got robust evidence behind it.

Speaker: 00:55:21

But I think as well, what you've been saying about actually

Speaker: 00:55:24

babies are just babies and they do what babies do, that there

Speaker: 00:55:29

is no sort of right and wrong.

Speaker: 00:55:31

And if they don't suddenly fit into a regime or a schedule or a

Speaker: 00:55:35

pattern, that there's nothing wrong.

Speaker: 00:55:39

It's just what babies are like.

Speaker: 00:55:41

Yeah, and you can spend an awful lot of time and energy battling

Speaker: 00:55:45

against that, whereas sometimes it's just easier just to go with it.

Speaker: 00:55:49

And as a complete contradiction, my second son was super easy

Speaker: 00:55:53

and basically just put himself into the Gina Ford routine

Speaker: 00:55:56

and started sleeping through the night at eight weeks old.

Speaker: 00:56:00

If he'd been my first, I would've been like, "you see, I'm an

Speaker: 00:56:03

excellent nanny. I know all about babies!" And I would've

Speaker: 00:56:05

taken credit for that myself.

Speaker: 00:56:07

So it was probably a good learning experience for me

Speaker: 00:56:13

to have the difficult baby.

Speaker: 00:56:14

I'm sure I'm a much more compassionate individual now.

Speaker: 00:56:17

Otherwise, I would've just been all smug and confident and thought that

Speaker: 00:56:20

it was my good work that caused it.

Speaker: 00:56:24

I can't think of a better way to sort of end this.

Speaker: 00:56:27

Would you consider coming back for a Q and a if I ever get listener

Speaker: 00:56:31

questions about breastfeeding issues?

Speaker: 00:56:34

Yeah sure, no problem.

Speaker: 00:56:34

Because I'm sure this will open up you know, a lot of

Speaker: 00:56:38

discussion, because it is such an important and complex area.

Speaker: 00:56:43

So thank you so much Sally!

Speaker: 00:56:46

You're really welcome!

Speaker: 00:56:47

If anybody wants to get hold of you or to learn more about what you

Speaker: 00:56:50

offer, how do we get hold of you?

Speaker: 00:56:52

Well, my website is baby thrive.com.

Speaker: 00:56:56

And I have a breastfeeding cafe.

Speaker: 00:56:58

Currently it's every Tuesday afternoon, it's just free or

Speaker: 00:57:01

donation in Crystal Palace.

Speaker: 00:57:03

It might be moving, so have a look on my website for the

Speaker: 00:57:06

actual up-to-date information.

Speaker: 00:57:08

And I do home visits in South East and Central London.

Speaker: 00:57:12

I was just cycling back from Clapham to get here!

Speaker: 00:57:15

Is this you on your bicycle like Mary Poppins?

Speaker: 00:57:18

I like that you've carried on the bike from the lady that visited you.

Speaker: 00:57:22

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:57:22

It's the easiest way to get around this neighbourhood, isn't it?

Speaker: 00:57:24

If you're not cycling up a massive hill, which I am every other day.

Speaker: 00:57:27

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:57:29

just one thing, I'm sort of conscious, you mentioned early

Speaker: 00:57:32

on, is children's centers can often be very helpful in terms

Speaker: 00:57:37

of like breastfeeding cafes or breastfeeding clinics or advice.

Speaker: 00:57:42

Is that something that you'd recommend mums to check

Speaker: 00:57:45

out in their local areas?

Speaker: 00:57:47

Well, you and I, we're in Lambeth aren't we?

Speaker: 00:57:50

And Lambeth actually has a very good breastfeeding support service.

Speaker: 00:57:55

But there are other places, including council's super nearby

Speaker: 00:57:59

to us where it is very different.

Speaker: 00:58:01

So it's a real postcode lottery.

Speaker: 00:58:03

What you're going to find, of my top tips where the actual most

Speaker: 00:58:07

experienced people are would be La Leche League, which is a

Speaker: 00:58:12

national breastfeeding charity.

Speaker: 00:58:14

N C T (National Childbirth Trust) has some baby cafes, whereas

Speaker: 00:58:17

breastfeeding network, anywhere that's got a breastfeeding

Speaker: 00:58:20

network project, which is Lambeth, as well as other places.

Speaker: 00:58:24

Those sort of national charities that are very focused on breastfeeding

Speaker: 00:58:28

often have the most qualified, experienced people and or they

Speaker: 00:58:32

know where to refer you and how to refer you and how best to get help.

Speaker: 00:58:35

So that would be my first port of call.

Speaker: 00:58:38

Fantastic, thank you.

Speaker: 00:58:39

And I'll put links to all of those in the show notes.

Speaker: 00:58:42

And thank you so much.

Speaker: 00:58:45

What a fascinating conversation.

Speaker: 00:58:46

I'm sure it's going to generate a lot of, discussion, but really

Speaker: 00:58:50

appreciate your time and your advice and your energy today.

Speaker: 00:58:53

You are very welcome.

Speaker: 00:58:54

No problem.

Speaker: 00:58:55

Thank you!

Speaker: 00:58:57

The theme music is 'Sunrise Expedition' by Joseph MacDade.

Speaker: 00:59:01

New episodes are released the first Monday of each month, available

Speaker: 00:59:04

on all major podcast platforms.

Speaker: 00:59:07

Hit follow to keep up with all the latest, and if you enjoy

Speaker: 00:59:10

Blue MumDays, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker: 00:59:14

It helps more people to find us.

Speaker: 00:59:16

Thank you so much.