Interview with Becky
Hi, my name is Becky. I live in Bradford, and I’ve got one child who is nearly three and a half.
I did this role because I wanted to breastfeed my own child, and I felt there was a lack of support. So I think from speaking to most regularly, there’s a lack of support. And I think people that don’t take up breastfeeding because they don’t have the knowledge or don’t know where to get the support from, or the journeys seem to end before they want them to. So yeah, I think it’s not as not as high as it probably should, or could be, really, the breastfeeding rates in Bradford, and I think some people might try, and it’s a little bit little bit harder than you sort of anticipate.
It doesn’t go as smoothly as you sort of think it will from your antenatal, and it’s just getting through those first few days, and your milk coming and everything is obviously really difficult. And if the support is there, your journey, you know, can end. But I do think we’re in a bottle feeding culture, in a sense that it’s not even a consideration for a lot of mums like me and my friendship group, barring one other friend, I’m the only one who breastfed, and I think I’ve I do the role I do now, like I work part time as well, but I do this because that’s what I needed. You know, my little girl, she didn’t actually latch until she was six weeks old, but I knew in my heart I wanted to breastfeed, so I found the support, you know, I want wasn’t willing to give up, you know. And I think that’s what I do, the role I do now.
So when she was first born, she wasn’t feeding. So the hospital set out to give a formula to be able to go home and just to continue trying to breastfeed at home. And then I started expressing and with combination fair, because I was struggling to express enough. And then I were lying in bed with her one morning, my husband had gone back to work, and she just latched onto my breast. And she was about six weeks, and then she took the bottle. Since then, it’s just giving people the tools and the knowledge, I think, sadly, the knowledge is lacking, even from healthcare professionals sometimes, and you’re not always told the right thing. So it is difficult, I think, sometimes, to know what to do, what’s the right thing to do when? And you sort of think that something isn’t possible, actually, it is.
You just need the right support. Yeah, you support network at home as well. It’s not just sort of medical professionals, is it? You know, it’s that. And I think it’s sort of, I wish a bit more that I’d advocated a bit more for myself. I were a first time mum, you know, and I listened to people who were saying to me, you know, no, just keep up breastfeeding for now, Formula feeder, you know, me now, I wouldn’t have stood for that, you know, but it’s difficult when you’re a first time mom, you’ve gone through childbirth, you sort of, you’re trusting these people what they’re telling you, you can’t, you know, advocate for yourself because you don’t have, you don’t have the knowledge. I think knowledge is power, these sort of things, you know, I had my antenatal class and they were like, Don’t worry, she’ll feed within the first hour of skin for skin, it’ll be great.
And that just didn’t happen. And I were like, oh, oh, I don’t know what to do from here, sort of thing, you know? So I think it is possible, but it’s about your support network at home. And, like I said, advocating for yourself, I think so. It is useful to have other people around you. I think that are like more like minded. My midwife had signposted me to the support group I volunteer for now. So my midwife was great. The support I got after was when she came to visit me at home, and she knew I wanted to breastfeed, and she said, Look, reach out to this group.
And it were coming out of COVID at the time, and I had come some zoom calls, and they talked me through those little things that I just didn’t know, you know, and them giving me those snippets of information meant that I had the knowledge to think, no, this is right, and I’m going to continue doing this. I wanted to breastfeed. They didn’t really have the capacity for the support. They sent me a health support worker. She was trying to get me to sugar water to get her to be interested in stuff, and it was just really bizarre. And then they just said, Look, if you want to go home, she needs to have this much formula every two hours, and then we’ll let you go home and see what happens. So at that time, my husband could come for two hours a day. I’d gone through the birth, I’d gone to her just left on my and I thought, I just want to go home, you know. And I didn’t feel like I had a choice, because I thought I can’t do this.
The breastfeeding weren’t working on my own. I didn’t have the support in the hospital. I thought, I’m gonna have to because, you know, they’re like, she needs to eat. She’s not eating from you. That’s so we’re very much quite a high pressure. Just give her formula. It was, it were an awful experience, really. I just, you know, you’d gone through this experience. I’d been in labour for over 40 hours, and obviously it won’t grit, and then they just like, right? It’s got to go, and I’ll say, bye. And I’d Spencer in my arms in a wheelchair, and they pushed me to our laptop, which way bite him as I were going, I really struggled with the fact that I couldn’t rest free to start off with, but I was quite quickly labelled as having postnatal depression, and I’m like, but I don’t.
And I thought, but I don’t fit. I just wanted to breastfeed my baby. Nobody seemed to understand how important it was to me and why it was so important. And it were like I were getting upset, but not because I felt any sort of but because I just wanted to feed my baby. This is all out, this how it just felt natural to me, and I couldn’t do it. That’s what was. Upsetting me, but I were quite quickly labelled with, oh, well, you should be feeling better now. Your hormones should have levelled. You passed the baby blue stage, and you must have postnatal depression. But she still isn’t breastfeeding. I’m not getting the tools of the information. I don’t know what I’m doing. You know, my husband was trying his best, and it would come in quite upsetting. And they were like, I just said, Look, I don’t feel great. And my midwife said, Reach out to my GP. So I did. And my GP were like, Well, it sounds to me like, you know, you’re saying you’ve got postnatal depression. And I were like, but I thought, well, I don’t, I didn’t think I did, but maybe I do. I don’t, you know, but as soon as she started feeding and stuff, I felt so much, you know, I didn’t, I wasn’t sort of feeling really awful or anything.
So I think it’s, it’s difficult, that it’s quite quick to be or you’re not feeling great. It’s more than baby blues. You must have postnatal depression. I actually started taking sertraline at the time because they were like, you know, you need to start feeling better. You’ve got a child to think about. And I’m like, okay, you know? And they’re like, if you just start breastfeeding, this will be fine. And I were like, Okay, I will then. But that were about three weeks you were three weeks old, and she latched at about six weeks so she latched three weeks later, and that’s all I wanted people very interested about the whole natural term weaning and what I get now. When are you going to stop? You know, she saw that, and I’m like, but it’s, it’s, it’s what works for us. And I think I didn’t plan on it.
This isn’t what I thought would happen when I had her. She’s now, you know, she’s three and a half in January, but she still wants to feed to sleep when I put a spears in the night. And what’s wrong with that, you know? And I think the magic she is being very baby led, child led. And why would I take that away from her? Now, I’m still happy to do it. She still likes it. It works for us.