NCT membership

kidtechnical

Counting_Pennies wrote:

Apparently there is some ridiculous guideline that states no health professional is allowed to give instructions on bottle feeding due to a danger of the guidelines being different to that of the manufacturer. Crazy I know but neither my NCT or health visitor were allowed to inform us. Just told to follow manu instructions!

I don't think this is true Counting_Pennies, as far as I am aware the NCT and most health professionals do not promote bottle feeding and IMO this is not rediculous, it's sensible.

However the NCT produce a booklet aimed at helping mothers to bottle feed safely (it's available on their website) & maternity units and community midwives have a duty to ensure bottlefeeding mothers are given the information required to bottlefeed safely. To help a mother breastfeed but not bottlefeed would be discrimination.

kidtechnical

Sasha,

I just saw your post asking what the difference was between the breastfeeding support given by the NHS & NCT.
I'd say that the NHS can be a bit of a lottery, so many variables: how busy your mws are, their own attitude to bf, how much training they've had on the subject, their knowledge can vary greatly from one HP to the other. Some NHS trusts have peer support groups running (I volunteer for one in N Lanarkshire & used to volunteer for one in Glasgow) but not all offer this service.

The NCT councellors on the other hand have trained for 2 or 3 yrs to diploma level, focusing purely on breastfeeding & are available via a helpline from 8am till 8pm, so even if you can't have someone visit you one to one you can at least speak to someone, rather than leaving a message on your HV machine or having to wait days till she comes out - I've come across someone on a forum who's having major feeding problems with her baby & is waiting 5 days for her HV to come out & see her - this IMO is just unacceptable, she needs help to feed & nourish her baby, she doesn't have a trivial question about nappy rash!
Basically, it comes down to consistancy & trust. You can trust the NCT to give you consistant research based information, also the women on the end of the phone volunteer & WANT you to call if you need to, it's not their job, they do it for free because they are committed to supporting women who want to breastfeed for as long as they want to breastfeed (there's no contract signed in breastmilk-if you throw in the towel for whatever reason they will respect your decision either way).

Incidentally the above stands for all the other excellent charities out there who offerer breastfeeding support to new mothers, including (but not exhaustive!) Breastfeeding Network (BfN), Association of Breastfeeding Mothers (ABM), Le Leche League (LLL)

Hope this helps.

kidtechnical

jellyhead wrote:

i wish i'd asked about mine lol! midwife told me there were classes but i later found out that i wasn't allowed to go to them not being a first timer. they allowed me to go to the labour class and it was rubbish, everyone left more worried than they'd started!

Jellyhead, put your foot down & tell them you want on a class - end of! If they wont accomodate you then go see your local MP & make a fuss. Most places offer a refresher course, when I had my 2nd (only 19 months after my first) they didn't have enough people going to the refresher class & squeezed me into their 1st timers class. Seriously, I'd go balistic, I think it's terrible they wont let you on!

jellyhead

there were plenty of first timers who weren't allowed on either, there had been no classes for about 6 months so when the clinic put on one set of classes it was full straight away. my first baby was 9 years ago and not only have i forgotten a lot but some things have changed - birth balls for example, what on earth are they and what do you do with them? apparently not a lot has changed in my hospital, they used to have a ball or 2 but nobody knows what happened to them ... hmmm ...

i've seen lots of different midwives, some explain lots of things without you asking, they chatter while they're untangling wires in the blood pressure thing etc. so you get lots of info, others don't talk much so you're only told something if you actually ask about it. i suppose all the info you need is in the 'emma's diary' or 'bounty' book but what if you can't read very well or english isn't your first language?

they let me go to the one class, there were other restrictions too - fathers were only allowed to go to 2 of the classes. i didn't want to push too much because i thought there might be a first timer who needed a place more than i did. i didn't have a normal labour last time though so i didn't really have a clue about what happens, i was hoping the labour class would be good but it was rubbish. my husband learned about a 'show' and braxton hicks, but even he said the class wasn't as good as reading the miriam stoppard book.

ho hum ... i wonder if my MP would be able to do anything? he's a bit busy at the moment because there's an application in to put a mobile phone mast opposite his house.

i did get a leaflet about the NCT classes, but the leaflet was at hospital - if i hadn't had an overnight stay in the maternity ward i'd never have seen the leaflet, there aren't any at my doctors surgery. i did get an NCT magazine with lots of useful info inside a 'baby welcome' pack though and have joined the NCT. i keep meaning to go to the bumps and babies group but i'm too hot and tired, i will go after bump becomes a baby i suppose.

jellyhead

sorry, i'm rambling today :rotfl:

i meant to say, if they want us all to breastfeed then how come everyone on benefits is given a tin of formula milk every week? okay it doesn't have to be forumla, it can be 7 pints of cows milk for the mother, but i have yet to meet anyone on benefits who doesn't bottlefeed - surely if people are going to be encouraged to use formula by the government in this way there should be enough info about it available?

my hospital and general area is really into breastfeeding at the moment, it's in the paper all the awards they get for being good at helping with feeding, all the extra training everyone working on the ward gets. i bet it's really hard to get bottle-feeding info, especially for those mums who never got onto an antenatal course.

kidtechnical

I think the government are planning on phasing out the free milk token thing. I think it originally happened because people who didn't bf & couldn't afford the formula that was the safe alternative would give their babies plain old cows milk before the age of 12 months. It does bug me that most health centres who run bf support groups contradict themselves by having posters up advertising their formula milk prices - hello! Our local health centres have stopped selling it & people have to go to local pharmacys for the subsidised formula.

I don't think it's true that help isn't out there for bottlefeeding mums. There's instructions on the tin, instructions come with the sterilising equipment, there are helplines you can call (customer care ones off the tin) and of course with bf rates being so low the majority of a new mums peers will have bottlefed at some point. Health professionals should give advice of safe bottlefeeding (ie sterilising, don't 'thinken' or 'dilute' the feed etc) but they probably can't give advice on the actual making up of the feed because it may vary from brand to brand & if they give advice on one brand & the mum switches brands & continues to follow health professionals advice to the letter rather than reading the instruction there'd be trouble.

True some people can't read, or can't read English as their 1st language, but health professionals SHOULD provide leaflets in their native tongue & these are available from UNICEF website (and possibly WHO too). Trust me, as a breastfeeding mum in a bottle feeding world there are much more people out there willing to help you bottlefeed (wether you want to or not) than there are those who can help to breastfeed.

Also, I think they tend to give more info on breastfeeding because the benefits are clear and positive. There are no proven health benefits to bottlefeeding (except maybe if it's all a baby's going to get then baby won't starve). Basically to give more info on bottlefeeding would consist of lots of "bottle feeding increases your babies risk of developing x, y, z" and that's too negative a message to send out given our history of bottle feeding, it'd upset to many people.

But this thread is running the risk of becoming a breast v bottle thread & of course the point of the thread is the NCT & the point of my post re bottlefeeding was to point out that the NCT & health professionals DO provide support & information for bottle feeding mums