Early breastfeeding problems

As a health visitor, my work brings me into daily contact with young families, and dietary advice constitutes a large part of my work with this important group, in promoting health and preventing illness. One area of special concern is the preparation and support of breast‐feeding mothers. Although the positive health benefits of breast‐feeding are widely acknowledged by health professionals, I frequently encounter newly confined mothers with difficulties which are the direct result of wrong or inappropriate advice being given by hospital staff or, indeed, no advice at all. I realise, of course, that success or failure in breast‐feeding is not solely the responsibility of hospitals; health visitors and other professionals have their parts to play antenatally, and even earlier, in health education programmes with schoolchildren, and in educating the public in general about breast‐feeding. In this article I shall consider some of the common breast‐feeding problems I see as a health visitor, and the ways in which I attempt to deal with them.