This may be the end of World Breastfeeding Week 2020 but campaigning for good breastfeeding support to be readily available to all mothers with young babies and for society to value breastfeeding, in order to maximise the population’s health and help protect the environment, continues.
This year Covid-19 lockdown has been an added complication for families, with minimal face-to-face contacts, and we do not know how long restrictions will need to continue. This is your opportunity to let us know what support you think is needed in the months ahead by using the Leave a Reply button below. Reading S’s story may help you identify what’s needed.
S gave birth to her first baby R in January and movingly describes her experiences and how she found the feeding arrangement that worked best in her circumstances:
“So R turned 6 months old last weekend and he is really thriving! I am still breastfeeding him which I am so proud I continued with, and it definitely got easier as time went on. It has always been a combined method with the bottle but his milk intake of breast has always been at least 60-75%. My milk supply never caught up after the mastitis no matter how much expressing and breastfeeding I did, and I found it was also really hard to try and sustain that vigorous cycle with my ME – I started to have really bad days where I just couldn’t function so it was easier for my husband to feed R with expressed milk and top up with formula if necessary. I do feel that the routine we got into with breastfeeding, expressing and bottles was the best we could do in our particular situation and he’s such a healthy little boy. I’m really glad I persevered with it all.
We started baby-led weaning about a fortnight ago and R is loving interacting with all the different foods! He especially loves broccoli (he was so keen on it, that not only was he feeding himself the various stalks I’d put on his tray, but he was trying to lick the tray too to get all the broccoli off!!), avocado, sweet potato, carrot, pear and banana. He wasn’t so keen on mashed potato – he preferred to wear it instead!
Life has been really strange and difficult in lockdown if I’m honest. It’s felt quite lonely, as I’m sure it has for everyone else, but we’ve really struggled at times to keep going without familial or friend support. The extra perinatal support I was having became video calls which I’m really grateful for but isn’t the same as in person. Aside from the difficulties, he’s such a lovely happy boy – I’m so proud!”
Thank you, S, for sharing your story.
Patricia Wise
Image from Adobe Stock
Breastfeeding trends (UK) 