Short talk series

Presented by Amy Brown

This talk draws on research with over 1200 women who breastfed their baby in the last two years, exploring their perceptions of health promotion around breastfeeding. It examines the messages that they found helpful, but predominantly what they felt could be improved. 

It focuses on aspects such as ditching the ‘breast is best’ message, seeing breastfeeding as a continuum rather than an ‘either/or’ and education into the challenges around the challenges that can arise and how to overcome them. However, a major focus was the perception that women wanted to breastfeed, but they found those around them unhelpful. They believed promotion exercises were important but needed to focus on society – partners, family, workplaces and the general public rather than considering breastfeeding as an individual responsibility. 

This talk considers what that wider public health approach might look like and who it needs to reach.

 Objectives

·  To understand mothers’ experiences of breastfeeding promotion and education

·  To examine what aspects of promotion and education women feel help them to breastfeed for longer and which aspects are not so useful 

·  To critique promotional and educational messaging strategies that can be harmful to breastfeeding continuation and maternal wellbeing

·  To explore how breastfeeding education and promotion strategies can reach a wider audience

Duration: 1 hour

Presented by Lyndsey Hookway

This presentation will discuss how understanding attachment, emotional connection and stress can transform sleep. 

Many mainstream approaches to sleep focus on eliminating behaviour, either by removing behavioural cues, or replacing them with alternatives. While this sometimes works, it can be stressful. When families are exhausted and overwhelmed, it often helps to focus on strategies that are less intense.

Furthermore, many parents are increasingly looking for sleep support that builds not only the connection with their child, but also decreases everyone's stress, optimises relationships and improves parental confidence. In doing this, sleep often spontaneously and passively improves.

This session will offer practical tools and strategies to improve calm, connection and confidence for overall optimal family well-being.

Objectives:

·  Why improving sleep doesn't always mean focusing on sleep

·  How attachment affects sleep

·  Practical tools to support secure attachment and optimal sleep

·  How to build trust when children feel anxious

·  Supporting connection and relationships for wellbeing and sleep

Duration: 1 hour

Presented by Amy Brown

How, when and why to introduce solid foods can feel overwhelming for new parents. Anxiety over which foods are ‘right’, whether their baby is ready or not and how much to give them can be high. Extra questions around whether you should give finger foods only, spoon-feed or a mixture of both can complicate the issue. Advice can be confusing – who do you trust, how do you know what they are saying is up to date, and what or who is influencing their words? If you are a health professional supporting parents, the same concerns can arise. 

This talk will examine the evidence for the what, when, how and why behind introducing solid foods to babies. It will explore what we know is important about this period, how this can be applied across different situations and unpick the different layers of influence upon advice around giving babies solid foods. The role of industry, sponsorship and generational advice will be central to this talk. 

Objectives: 

· To examine the evidence behind current guidance around timing of introducing solid foods

· To explore influences on parents’ perceptions and barriers around waiting until six months to introduce solid foods

· To examine nutritional and energy needs of infants and how introducing solid foods can support this · To understand the concept of responsive feeding and how it may affect infant weight and eating behaviour longer term 

Duration: 1 hour

Presented by Lyndsey Hookway

The relationship between breast/chest feeding, sleep and safety is complex, emotive and controversial. 

It is well-known that breastfeeding reduces the risk of sudden infant death, and therefore optimizing breastfeeding/chestfeeding remains a public health concern. 

The need for perinatal and lactation support professionals to facilitate breastfeeding/chestfeeding forces the question of how we realistically support those families at night. 

Many families are keen to breast/chest feed, but they also may struggle with the practicalities of adhering to the current safe sleep guidelines in the face of exhaustion. 

This presentation will discuss some of the controversies around sleep, bed-sharing and breastfeeding/chestfeeding, highlighting examples of practice from around the world.

Objectives

·  Be able to explain some of the hypothesized links between breastfeeding/chestfeeding and reduced risk of Sudden Infant Death

·  Understand the normalcy of night feeds, the inter-relationship between feeding and sleep, and the necessity of responsive feeding for the maintenance of milk supply

·  Be able to suggest ways to cope with night feeds for new families

·  Understand the current guidelines for safe sleep and the questions these raise regarding bed-sharing

·  Appreciate the differences in recommendations for practice and cultural differences in sleep information around the world

Duration: 1 hour

Presented by Amy Brown

Promoting breastfeeding as protective of both maternal and infant health is a central role or governments, health professionals and breastfeeding advocates. Talking about breastfeeding difficulties and why ingrained barriers must be tackled is essential to ensuring the situation changes for future mothers. 

However, sometimes it feels as if we are caught in a vicious circle; we must talk about breastfeeding as our rates are low and many women wish they had breastfed for longer, yet discussing these issues is often criticized as causing pain. 

This talk will present findings from a large research study which explored the experiences of over 3000 women who could not breastfeed for as long as they wanted, presenting their lasting emotions from their experience and their ideas for how we could promote breastfeeding in ways that cause them the least pain. The concept of negative breastfeeding emotions displaying as psychological trauma for a sub group of women will be discussed.  

Objectives 

·  To understand the varied physiological, psychological and cultural reasons why breastfeeding is important to many women

·  To examine the wide-ranging impacts on wellbeing of not being able to breastfeed upon including whether some women may experience a longer-term trauma reaction 

·  To critique the support and care women receive when stopping breastfeeding before they are ready 

·  To explore what changes women feel need to be made to better support those who have not met their breastfeeding goals 

Duration: 1 hour

Presented by Lyndsey Hookway

Many infants and children require medical care for acute or chronic illness. Breastfeeding confers multiple benefits to children both in the short and long term. Breastfeeding may shorten the duration and severity of illness and provide important immunological protection to potentially buffer children against hospital acquired infection. Breastfeeding also provides pain relief, comfort, and normality during times of fear, pain, stress and difficulty for families. 

However, maintaining breastfeeding during hospital admission can be challenging, due to institutional barriers, difficulty accessing specialist support, and lack of information and training for health care staff.

While there is robust evidence about the needs of infants born prematurely, and a convincing and well-established acceptance of the importance of breastmilk and for critically sick neonates, far less is known about the needs of older infants and children who develop illness or have ongoing health needs beyond the neonatal period. 

This presentation will explore the profound ways in which breastfeeding can support sick infants and children alongside medical treatment, introduce a model of collaborative working between medical, nursing and lactation professionals and make recommendations for practical ways in which breastfeeding can be protected, preserved and promoted in the hospital setting.

Objectives:

•  Explain the prevalence & impact of serious illness in young children 

•  Describe treatments for critically sick infants & children

•  Discuss common challenges faced by families of critically sick children

•  Describe specific lactation needs of hospitalized families

Duration: 1 hour