Hello, I am new to this wonderful group of learned people, I will try my best to abide by the very sensible rules and I know that I am going to learn a lot from you and may be I can give a little too. This is my second attempt at contacting you, I have already made a mistake and sent this to lactnet via uNmed, I just had not seen the M even though I have been plucking up courage to sign on for days; my boys will hoot! I am married and we have 2 young men of 18 & 14yrs. I have been a UK National Childbirth Trust Breastfeeding Counsellor for quite some years and realised the second passion in my life upon breastfeeding after a v difficult start after the birth of our eldest. I have a wonderful mother who helped me, she is Australian, a grazier's daughter from N. Queensland, inland from Charters Towers, she trained as a midwife in Brisbane and came over to UK on holiday and married here, she stopped working just before my birth in 1953, what a great help and mentor she was, sitting with me for every feed thro the 24 hours until we got it together about 3.5 weeks after his birth, I can never repay her for the tender care at such an important time in my mothering. I learnt from this and try when I can to do this for the mothers that I meet. There is nothing finer than getting mother and baby breastfeeding. I live in a large village nestling under the South Downs ten miles from the sea in UK. Yours, Helen M. Woodman