Lynda Leach > breastfeeding classes

The classes are interactive and will enable women to explore personal and family attitudes to breastfeeding.

All information given is up to date and research-based. Although a detailed agenda has been established for the classes, women will be able to add their own issues to this agenda.

It is envisaged that some of the women attending the class will have attended Lynda’s antenatal classes. This class will offer these women an opportunity of meeting women who shared their antenatal classes.

Breastfeeding is partly instinctive and partly learned. Some women have more breastfeeding problems than others. The class should assist women to avoid/ease difficulties encountered in the early days. Also, the class will help women who had breastfeeding problems with their first baby.

Topics covered in each class will include:

• Health benefits of breastfeeding for mothers and babies
• How breast milk is produced; colostrum, foremilk and hindmilk
• Skin-to-skin contact and its role in bonding
• The importance and timing of the first feed
• Correct positioning and attachment, illustrated by appropriate DVDs
• Signs that your baby is getting enough milk, via weight gain and nappy contents
• Frequency and length of feeds, especially in the early days; significance of feeding on demand and night feeds
• Importance of “rooming-in” together
• How to deal with problems; breast engorgement, thrush, mastitis, low milk supply, oversupply of milk, colic, conflicting advice, mother’s diet, medication and growth spurts
• When and where to be measured for feeding bras
• Expressing breast milk; hand expressing and electrical breast pumps
• How to combine returning to work with breastfeeding
• Use of dummies (pacifiers)
• Where to get help if you need it, including recommended books