Pregnancy and Breastfeeding Support

 

If you are pregnant or breastfeeding and live in Newcastle, we can offer you information and support!

 

Our Pregnancy and Breastfeeding Services:

Best Start combines our Pregnancy and Breastfeeding Support service. We are a team of trained practitioners and volunteers working alongside midwives and health visitors to offer additional support to families in Newcastle.

Our Pregnancy Support service offers practical and emotional support throughout your pregnancy and our Breastfeeding Support service offers information and support throughout your breastfeeding journey. We offer telephone support as well as social groups within the community.

You can call the team on 07826531575 or get in touch via our contact form.

 


Pregnancy Support

Our Best Start services are free, confidential and non-judgemental.

The team are trained to provide practical and emotional support to women from conception to birth and we offer information to enable you to make informed choices about how to feed your baby.

They can support you with:

  • building strong parent-baby relationships,
  • preparing for labour and birth
  • preparing for baby.

 

Pregnancy Social Groups

 

Bump Buds Facebook Page

Pop over to our Bump Buds page for ongoing information and support.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Pregnancy Resource page also has some really useful information.

 


Breastfeeding Support

We can offer group or one to one sessions with support to achieve your breastfeeding goals, building a happy baby and guidance on returning to work.  Here’s Leanne from our Best Start team to tell you a bit more about the service we offer:

 

How you can get involved:

Join us at our weekly Pregnancy and Breastfeeding groups

Our Breastfeeding Social Groups are relaxed, informal and friendly and offer a great way to meet others and get information and support from a member of staff or a volunteer.

 

 

 

Visit our What’s On page for details and for information about our other family and health and wellbeing activities.

 

Pop over to the Breastfeeding Mams Facebook page

For ongoing guidance, support, top tips and more!

 

 

Join our Breastfeeding Mams Newcastle Peer Support Facebook Group

This is a private space for breastfeeding mothers to ask questions about feeding their babies, and to make links with other mums. The group is run by our Best Start peer support volunteers, who are on hand to answer any questions and signpost to evidence-based, research-led information.  The group is monitored between 9am-9pm every day, including weekends, meaning that mothers can find support outside of normal office hours. Joining the group is a great way of boosting confidence and learning more about our breastfeeding social groups across the city.

How to join:

You must live in Newcastle and you’ll need a Facebook account.  Click the link to access the group, you’ll then be asked some questions before you are made a member.

 

Download, print or share our A to Z of Breastfeeding

This is a must read if you are breastfeeding, planning to breastfeed or even if you are unsure about the benefits of breastfeeding!

Our Best Start team has put together this extensive guide to all things breastfeeding, to help and support you on your feeding journey.  In this straightforward and easy-to-read guide, you’ll find the answers to many common questions and issues, and it provides up to date information, guidance and practical solutions.

Download it and share with anyone you think would find it useful!

Check out our Breastfeeding resource page:

 


Become a Breastfeeding Friendly Business

 

 

Download our Breastfeeding Friendly Business brochure and covering letter to find out more about the scheme, what it involves, the benefits of joining and contact details.

 


 

‘Talking About…’

Throughout the year we’ll be talking about some of the popular discussion topics and common questions we get asked from breastfeeding mothers.

Claire is here and talking about…skin to skin contact

 

View our other recent Talking About topics:


Best Start Volunteers

 

Our Volunteers are an incredibly important part of what we do, many have used our services previously and found the support invaluable and so they have wanted to offer support to other women too.

All of our volunteers are trained to provide antenatal and breast feeding support to mothers and families.

To hear from some our amazing volunteers, we have a “Meet some of our volunteers” playlist on You Tube where our volunteers share their own personal experiences of volunteering with Healthworks and why they decided to get involved.

 

Volunteer Training

Our Best Start team offer a range of volunteering opportunities for people living in Newcastle. Volunteers benefit from the following free training:

Pregnancy Support Training:
This course is for anyone who would like to volunteer to support families in Newcastle during their pregnancy. You will learn about how to support mothers and their families including sessions on building strong parent baby relationships, birth physiology, compassion and communication, healthy pregnancy, preparing for baby and much more.

Breastfeeding Support Training:
This course is for women with an experience of Breastfeeding who would like to offer peer to peer support to other breastfeeding women in their community. This course covers training on peer to peer support, the values of breastfeeding and the physiology of making breast milk, responsive feeding, common infant feeding problems, building loving relationships and a whole lot more.

Volunteering is really rewarding and it’s great for the soul but it also has lots of other benefits. You will gain and develop new skills and experiences, receive necessary training and regular support, have regular supervision with the Volunteer Coordinator and receive a reimbursement of expenses.

You can find out more about volunteering at Healthworks here.

 

You may also be interested in:

Our Improving Wellbeing page too as this has lots of information, tips and resources to help with relaxation and positive mental wellbeing.

Our Stop Smoking services, if you are a smoker and need support to quit we can help and support you, find out more.

Finding out more about our Pre school. We offer places for 2, 3 and 4 year olds.