It's worth everyone reading the paper Karen G  links to, and the very
good letter in response to it from UNICEF Baby Friendly's Sue Ashmore.

Sue says, a propos health service support for breastfeeding:

"... poor practice for breastfeeding almost invariably means poor
practice for bottle feeding too. "

This is my experience, too.

The mothers who complain 'no one showed me how to make up a bottle'
or 'they told me they weren't allowed to discuss formula with me' or
'we stopped breastfeeding, and then were just told 'go and buy some
formula' and we didn't have a clue" or 'they go on and on about how
breastfeeding is best but what about the women it doesn't work for? I
had no one to help me at all, and I just felt terrible.'

All these are paraphrased from emails and comments I get, as I handle
a lot of the heartbreaker emails that come to my organisation.

When women feel under-informed, or under-prepared, about formula
feeding, they have almost always had a really bad breastfeeding
experience.

Heather Welford Neil

NCT bfc, tutor, UK

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