You Don't Know, What You Don't Know, Until You Don't Know It!

Why ante-natal breastfeeding courses are so important.

In my working life, I spend a great deal of my time working with new parents helping them to feed their babies, either breast or chest feeding and sometimes with bottles.

Often, in order to help, I have to start by explaining how breastfeeding (chest feeding) works, what normal feeding is for a newborn baby and how all the beliefs and plans for how their feeding journey would need adjusting!

I know that somehow the work that health professionals have done to promote and encourage breastfeeding (chest feeding) has somewhat confused the issue. The message for a long time was 'Breast is Best and people heard that, and it is often people's reason for choosing to breastfeed their baby. But digging a little deeper, what I discover is that people understand that their own milk is healthiest for their baby, but most significantly that breastfeeding (chest feeding) is easy. That is what breasts are for, but people really do think breastfeeding is going to 'just happen' with no issues at all, everyone will know what to do, and there will be no problems.

Let me try to reflect a little on that. Let’s think of another situation in life that has similar complexities. Learning to drive works well as an analogy. Think about what needs to happen to learn to drive. For many people, they will have been in a car at some point in their lives; for many, they will have been in a car from being a baby, almost every day. The car is a familiar environment, you know how to get into it, where the driver sits, what equipment a car has, where a car sits on the road and the movements and skills a driver uses to move the car around. All of this you know because you have seen it day in and day out. Still, when you come to learn to drive yourself, do you just get into the car? Not these days, you have to do some reading about all the rules and regulations, how it all works and work out what applies to you, and then you have to sit and pass a test. After that (maybe before), you start lessons with a qualified teacher who supports and teaches you until you are safe to go it alone. Driving is a skill, and this is what is expected of you before you can go it alone…

Headline news breastfeeding (chest feeding) is a skill, and you need education and support to learn and then develop your confidence before you can go it alone! In years gone by, we lived in such a way that, just like driving a car, we would have watched other people feeding their babies themselves every day. We would have come to breastfeeding (chest feeding) with inbuilt knowledge, then we would have had the same community support as we learned to feed our own baby. In this day and age, that just does not happen. We don’t see breastfeeding (chest feeding) daily or sometimes ever, and we certainly have very little experience of breastfeeding (chest feeding) day to day, particularly with newborns. We aren’t taught at school, or at college, there are no adverts on the TV and few feeding people on the screens at all unless they are using a bottle. So, the reality is you really don’t know what you don’t know, until you don’t know it! Then for so many it is too frightening, painful and difficult to try to learn it all with a tiny newborn baby.

The best way to learn about breastfeeding (chest feeding) your baby is to ask the experts. At Nutrition4Nippers, we offer a 3-session Antenatal Course to cover all you need to know before baby arrives. The session aims, based upon our years of expertise, to answer the questions that you are most likely to have about, infant development, relationship building and brain development, premium infant nutrition, labour and delivery of your baby, and caring for your baby after they arrive. We will explore, brain development, relationships, labour and birth, normal newborn behaviour, newborn feeding, sleep and managing day-to-day feeding, as well as all of the practicalities of feeding a baby yourself. The sessions allow time to ask questions, and if needed, additional individual support is available. Whilst we know that breastfeeding (chest feeding) is best for every baby, it may well not be for every parent. We are very conscious that for many, their feeding journey will be complicated and may not be exactly what they planned. In our sessions we aim to help you decide what is right for you and your baby and how to be successful with whatever method you decide to use. We aim to give you the information and support that you need to make sure that once your baby arrives, you feel confident knowing all the facts to support you in feeding your baby. Even more importantly, how to know when it isn't right and where to go to get the right help to make YOUR journey a success.