This morning, after a brief exchange with her MP, Helen Whately, on Twitter, Tannice Hemming has written her the below, comprehensive email looking for support with the campaign to KeepKentBreastfeeding #keepkentbf.
We urge you to contact your MP – do so easily at writetothem.com a website that will allow you to find your local MP and write to them, there on the website.
Dear Helen,
Further to our brief conversation on Twitter this morning, I wanted to make you aware of the consultation on planned cuts to Kent County Council’s current breastfeeding support services.
The consultation page on the Kent CC website is available at http://consultations.kent.gov.
I’ve recently trained and graduated as a breastfeeding peer supporter and I’m also a mum to a 17 month old daughter who I am breastfeeding. I found out about the consultation on the 19th July, about one month after I graduated the course run by the incumbent provider, PS Breastfeeding CIC.
The plans, in short, are to remove breastfeeding groups (currently 40 a week in the district of Kent) and replace them with ‘Baby Hubs’ which will be run by Health Visitors and supported by peer supporters (which will be re-named to infant feeding peer supporters – but we don’t know what that actually means in terms of any role change). Health Visitors are an enormously vital part of post-partum support, but everyone I have spoken to is concerned that as they are not specifically trained in breastfeeding support, the service that mums receive won’t be as thorough and helpful as it is at present and HVs won’t have the time to help as the breastfeeding specialists and peer supporters do presently.
One of the worst proposed changes is removing access to breastfeeding counsellors entirely and removing free, open, drop-in access to specialist lactation consultants. This will be referral only. The baby hubs themselves will be multi-thematic and only 3 or 4 per district per week. We are concerned that this will mean reduced access – especially for c-section mothers who often need more support with delayed lactation and pain with their scar – and ladies who can’t drive. Referrals will mean delay in support and we’re absolutely convinced that this will mean reduced breastfeeding rates across the county. This in turn can mean more pressure on the NHS Trusts in the county due to the risks of infant formula and the proven (then lost) benefits to health for both mother and child from breastfeeding.
We are further concerned, based on the Baby Hub in Dover, that mothers will not be able to bring children older than 1 to these busy Baby Hubs, hitting second-time mothers with older children and peer supporters who often bring their children to groups under the current model. Moreover, it does not support women who experience problems feeding infants over 1 year old. Both the NHS and the WHO recommend exclusive breastfeeding to the age of 6 months and then to 2 years and beyond, as long as mother and child are happy to.
Finally, we are concerned that the multi-thematic baby hubs will be a busy, unwelcoming place for mothers and babies, especially those still building their confidence to breastfeed in public, as this often involves exposing the entire breast and finding the best position. Kent has already dramatically reduced support for tongue tie division and mothers who have tongue tied babies will have to wait for potentially two referrals to get the two further referrals to have a tongue tie divided. This is simply not good enough and will stop many breastfeeding journeys. Women already have to work on seeking out support on breastfeeding in a society where it is not normalised to breastfeed and formula feeding seems to be the norm. We cannot promote breastfeeding as a society and country, yet remove easy, open access to specialist lactation consultants and completely slash breastfeeding groups.
The consultation ends on the 3rd September and I hope that we can perhaps talk before then, as you suggested at your surgery, or perhaps at a local breastfeeding support group.
Today I have launched keepkentbreastfeeding.org to raise awareness and help people to lobby their local MPs and respond to the consultation.
Many thanks in advance for any support – new Labour MP for Canterbury Rosie Duffield has already lent her voice to the debate.
Kind regards
Tannice Hemming,
Bearsted, Maidstone resident
Volunteer Breastfeeding Peer Supporter
Please send your MP an email if you can, stating your concerns about the planned cuts to Kent’s vital breastfeeding support services.
Don’t forget to respond to the consultation if you haven’t already.
If you’d like to share any emails you have sent to your local MP, please email them to keepkentbreastfeeding@gmail.com
Don’t forget to email your response to the consultation by the 3rd of September!
