Make breastfeeding aids for difficulties free on NHS?!!

[londonbump2]

Sorry, couldn't think of how to title!

I really think things to aid breastfeeding difficulties should be free on the NHS, trying to give your baby breastmilk can cost an absolute bomb!

Free loan of breastpumps (readily available) and lansinoh creams especially! And even fenugreek as domperidone is so difficult to have prescribed.

Cheap breastpumps are absolutely rubbish and take so long that it's impractical (in my experience anyway), I ended up having three different ones, a handpump as reconmended by midwife, then another said to get an electric one as I was still engorged then that slowly died until I got another one!! Hiring is minimum £40 a month, and if you can no longer breastfeed you'll probably be topping that up with formula plus the cost of fenugreek to help supply and lansinoh for comfort, it's insane.

Even things like breastpads are expensive as you need to change after every feed or express.

Sorry but it really irritates me how breastfeeding is free - I probably spent just as much trying to breastfeed as I have on formula!

 

[midori1999]

I see what you're saying, but...

Hand expressing can be very effective for many women, especially early on. Some women actually have more success with hand expression because let down often isn't as inhibited as it is with a breastpump. It would be lovely if more breastpumps were available for loan from the NHS and I agree they should be in an ideal world, but they are expensive and it would be impractical to be able to provide them for all women who wanted or needed to pump.

Vaseline is a cheap and very good alternative to Lanisoh. Plus, lanisoh is available on prescription in some areas. That said, I only went through just over 1 tube of it and I had to use it for quite a while.

You may be aware anyway, but Domperidone is not easy to get as it is not licensed for use in breastfeeding Mothers and so practitioners who prescribe it are taking a huge personal risk if they do. In my area it is 'backlisted' and GP's are simply not allowed to prescribe it as a glactalogue. Fenugreek is not without contraindications and it would never be available on the NHS as there are no studies to show it works as a galactalogue. There are lots of anecdotal reports however. Plus, most supply problems have an underlying cause which can be solved without the use of galactalogues, which would mean a better outcome anyway.

If you use washable breastpads they work out a lot cheaper. I don't think these are something that should be provided and most women don't need them after a few months or less anyway.

Like I said, I can see what you are saying, but the money in the NHS pot for breastfeeding resources is already very limited and personally I want to see it spend on improving the knowledge of midwives, GP's and HV's, not least so that women still in hospital post natally do not have to post on internet forums asking for help because that is the only help they can get.

 

[summer rain]

I think it depends on your area; in a lot of more deprived areas breastpump hire is free, you just have to pay £15 or something as a one off for the pumping kit, in my area its a little different, the kit is really cheap, £2.50 or £5 each but the cost of hire is similar to NCT etc-only difference is there is no deposit to pay and you rent on a day to day 'pay as you go' basis so you don't have to rent out for a whole month at a time. When it comes to breastpads; although I leak like a firehose if I have a slight pressure applied to my nipple it stops it so a good nursing bra means I don't leak while wearing it; when I do need a few breastpads in the very early days I use the free ones which come with the breastpump, bottles etc xx

 

[Tasha]

I understand what you are saying, however I would much prefer that the money this would cost on people to provide support, with latch/suppy issues etc

 

[smokey]

Is this another postcode type thing because where we are the hospital where more then glad to provide a breastpump (a rather basic one though) and hand out breastpads sample like they where candy.
things like that where easy to get out of them but answers and explanations where not.
I didnt use their pumps because I had my own which was a hand pump but it was pretty useless and only could get about 20 ml out at a time and ended up with more on me then was in the bottle but being nieve I thought that was pretty normal.
I had a bad supply and lo completly refused to latch but the more I read up about it later the more I realise that the supply could have possibly been better with a better pump and more education on it, if I had know then alot of what I know now I wouldnt have just summed myself up as a bad supply but rather bad methods.

 

[vaniilla]

I think more money should go on training staff and hiring more staff, at the hospital I gave birth there was only one breastfeeding consultant at the hospital, who came to see me right after lo was born which was pointless as he was really floppy and was taken away by the consultant and I never saw her again, More should be done to train HV's too as mine wasn't interested in BF whatsoever, I managed to get a leaflet for a clinic over an hour away from her and nothing else advice wise. Tools for breastfeeding are useless unless you are able to work out how to bf.

 

[londonbump2]

Didn't realise there were places where the hospital will loan you a pump! I was given the number of a place to hire one for £45 a month.

The NCT refuse to hire out for more than a month or two, or so my local agent told me.

If money was spent buying pumps and then hiring them out at a low cost to women so that the money was made back but people could afford to hire them.

Your right, more training would be a better spend of money (lactation consultant came to see me once and was useless as his bloomin latch was fine it was the reflux/cmpi that everyone failed to pick up on that made him scream the house down).

I was just reading the thread about making formula cheaper and even that people in the US get formula for free and it annoyed me how expensive breastfeeding was.

Ok, breastpads etc aren't that expensive and can be done without (actually lansinoh is a god send and if I didn't keep losing the tubes wouldn't have been too bad) but decent pumps are. My LO screamed the place down feeding, I originally had a hand pump but was advised when he first refused one breast (went engorged when my milk came in) to get an electric one as 'you'll need it anyway', so I opted for an affordable one, which was unbelievably rubbish when they got me to introduce a bottle as he wasn't gaining weight and I was spending half my day trying to pump enough. We ended up on mostly formula & expressed milk with another pump when the motor on that one just got worse and worse, as he refused the breast and nobody could figure out why.



I remember suggesting CMPI and being told that it wasn't and that I had to 'drink milk to make milk'.