I pay for "Breastfeeding Coordinators"!

gauly

Really2 wrote: »

although I am sure you mean well, this is the kind of blinkered point when things don't happen that causes all the problems.

He lost 1.2lb in 5 days, was not getting any ware enough liquids let a alone milk so a bottle was unavoidable unless we could have got a warm steralised water breast.

But, as I said, you didn't give much detail, which I can understand. Losing over 1lb in 5 days is too much and your child needed formula. Losing some weight, being hungry and drinking a bottle quickly (which is all you did describe) are completely normal though.

There are horror stories all over the internet about how midwives kept pushing breastfeeding until the baby has lost way too much weight or even became limp and unresponsive. There are also a lot of people who give up because breastfeeding seems difficult or the baby is hungry and they think that means something is wrong. That's why people need this help from experts - someone who actually knows when to keep going or swap to formula. In your case it would have been great to have a competant "Breastfeeding coodinator" or whatever they are called, as she would have given you a bottle sooner rather than letting the situation drag on until the baby was starving, as actually happened.

I'm not trying to make a "blinkered point" that everyone can breastfeed - please don't take it that way. I'm sure we all know that formula is a life-saver in many cases and I hope people would use their common sense rather than persist in breastfeeding when it is dangerous.

The_White_Horse

RenovationMan wrote: »

As far as the pay is concerned, I googled and saw 2 jobs in London at a range of something like £40k to £50k. Tube drivers in London can earn as much.

don't get me started on them!! 16k is more than enough for them. MORE THAN ENOUGH.

in fact, when i go to the fair i have to pay to drive the dodgems.

Zelazny

The_White_Horse wrote: »

don't get me started on them!! 16k is more than enough for them. MORE THAN ENOUGH.

in fact, when i go to the fair i have to pay to drive the dodgems.

The DLR and parts of the Victoria and Jubilee lines can run without drivers, in principle. The unions won't let the idea be spread because of "safety concerns".

They say that if the train breaks down, you need a member of staff on board to show people what to do. And that if there's a member of staff on board, they may as well be driving. And driving is really hard/stressful, so they need lots and lots of money.

Not sure I agree...

LilacPixie

I'd rather they scrapped/scaled down health visitors. Now I find them a pointless waste of space. Oh and i fed 3 of my kids but only after the boobie volunteer visited me at home 3-4 times a day for the first week with baby number 1 to help. Middlebaby i needed to top up as i lost blood after delivery and milk quality was rubbish. Number 3 is still feeding from me. It is not easy though

She was atually quite nice and was a student midwife and breast feeding specialist. As far as i know the actual co-ordinators are grade 7 midwifes and the salary would be whatever was appropriate for that grade and length of service.

Rochdale_Pioneers

The_White_Horse wrote: »

and it is all a fad. in the 80's they said put the child on their front, now it is on their back. next week it will be on it's side. these same breast feeding automatons will be spouting formula is best in 10 years when some research says it is.

Yes, breastfeeding IS a fad. Never mind those milk+antibodies producing things on thefront of your body new mums, what you want is this fancy new formula we're selling. Plus bottles, a steriliser, oh and you need different flow teets depending on the age of the child - we'l sell you those as well.

That is what mums were told in the 70s - go for the bottle. And why were they told to go for the bottle? Because a profit could be made in replacing free baby food with manufactured. Breastfeeding rates collapsed in this country at the same time as ill-health levels and demands on the NHS shot up. Its no coincidence either, because in denying breast milk you deprive the baby of all the mother's immunities.

So the NHS realised that it could improve health and save a bomb by getting mothers to breastfeed again. I'm sure they did "just print a leaflet" as was suggested - problem is that when culturally breast-feeding is seen as wrong, a leaflet isn't going to do it. So we need to spend money on coordinators so that volunteers like my wife can help struggling mothers keep breast feeding. Of course we need formula for when breast isn't possible or is impractical, but the more kids you breastfeed for longer the better their health and the more cash we save.

If the knuckle-draggers on here don't like that, perhaps they are in thrall to the formula companies as the medical profession was for several decades. After all, letting mums switch to bottle means you don't have to shell out AND you can buy shares in them and make money. And if people get sicker thats OK - you can make money in making them well again.

Healthy people are unprofitable. Lets ban it.

the_flying_pig

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Yes, breastfeeding IS a fad. Never mind those milk+antibodies producing things on thefront of your body new mums, what you want is this fancy new formula we're selling. Plus bottles, a steriliser, oh and you need different flow teets depending on the age of the child - we'l sell you those as well.

That is what mums were told in the 70s - go for the bottle. And why were they told to go for the bottle? Because a profit could be made in replacing free baby food with manufactured. Breastfeeding rates collapsed in this country at the same time as ill-health levels and demands on the NHS shot up. Its no coincidence either, because in denying breast milk you deprive the baby of all the mother's immunities.

So the NHS realised that it could improve health and save a bomb by getting mothers to breastfeed again. I'm sure they did "just print a leaflet" as was suggested - problem is that when culturally breast-feeding is seen as wrong, a leaflet isn't going to do it. So we need to spend money on coordinators so that volunteers like my wife can help struggling mothers keep breast feeding. Of course we need formula for when breast isn't possible or is impractical, but the more kids you breastfeed for longer the better their health and the more cash we save.

If the knuckle-draggers on here don't like that, perhaps they are in thrall to the formula companies as the medical profession was for several decades. After all, letting mums switch to bottle means you don't have to shell out AND you can buy shares in them and make money. And if people get sicker thats OK - you can make money in making them well again.

Healthy people are unprofitable. Lets ban it.

a small point but a bit simplistic to describe breast milk as "free". you can't make something out of nothing. for every calorie of energy that a mother provides to her child via breastmilk she herself will have to eat a rather bigger number of calories in order to have the energy to make it. the cheapest powdered baby milk costs, what, £5-£10 for a kilo, clearly a good deal more expensive than the sort of cheap calories a mother coudl get from, er, potatoes or whatnot but it's not like one's free and the other costs the earth. fair piont that sterilisers, bottles, and whatnot cost money i suppose but you can get some of that stuff secondhand...

CLAPTON

it seems to me

given money in the NHS is limited

a. are breast feeding co-ordinators the best use of this money? are there really no better uses for it?

b. is there any evidence that the more co-ordinators there are that level of health in young children is improved?

c. is there any evidence that womens health is improved by having more co-ordinators

d. there has been a significant change over the last 30-40 years but then so have social mores; many more women now return to work sooner after birth than happened years ago

I don't know the answers myself but I'ld be interested in any knowing of evidence based studies and what they show.

tyllwyd

the_flying_pig wrote: »

a small point but a bit simplistic to describe breast milk as "free". you can't make something out of nothing. for every calorie of energy that a mother provides to her child via breastmilk she herself will have to eat a rather bigger number of calories in order to have the energy to make it. ...

I agree that mothers will have to eat a bit more to produce breastmilk, but when you count in the cost of producing the milk, then processing it, then packaging it, then distributing it to shops, then transporting it to the home, then sterilizing bottles, then boiling water to make it up (which then has to cool down before it can be used, and then probably re-heated again) - there must be a huge difference over six months or so. (Granted that there is a cost in producing the food that the mums eat, to be fair it would be better if we grew & ate produce from our own back gardens, but even so I'd have thought breastfeeding beats bottlefeeding by a significant amount.)

LilacPixie

from memory with baby 2 a tub of formula lasted 5-6 days depending on age and at £8 ish a tub. there is no way i eat £8 extra food in the same period. I do drink alot more though,

neverdespairgirl

the_flying_pig wrote: »

a small point but a bit simplistic to describe breast milk as "free". you can't make something out of nothing. for every calorie of energy that a mother provides to her child via breastmilk she herself will have to eat a rather bigger number of calories in order to have the energy to make it.

Most new mothers want to lose weight (-: