Ashleigh’s Story

Ashleigh gave birth in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown, because of this there were no groups for Ashleigh to attend which meant she was missing out on peer support.  She was also under the care of the infant feeding team at the RVI who put a feeding plan in place before Ashleigh and her baby left hospital. This meant Ashleigh was following a strict routine of feeding at the breast 3 hourly followed by expressing breastmilk to boost her supply and giving baby ‘top ups’ of expressed breastmilk and artificial formula to ensure baby was getting enough milk.

Our Amazing Start team called to offer support and continued having weekly telephone contact with Ashleigh. We supported mum to follow her feeding plan, gave encouragement when things were tricky and supported her in her feeding choices. During our weekly telephone contacts with her, we were able to highlight the progress she had made since the previous week which helped her to see it for herself.

Ashleigh was happy to get to a stage where she was able to exclusively breastfeed her baby without the need to express or give any additional milk after breastfeeds. Ashleigh also joined in with our weekly virtual breastfeeding social group where she was able to speak to volunteers and other breastfeeding mams to access the peer support that she was missing.

Ashleigh’s daughter is 9 months old now and still breastfeeding alongside solid foods.

Ashleigh said –
I was so anxious about trying to breastfeed again after my short and difficult experience breastfeeding my son. I never thought I would be able to exclusively breastfeed but with the amazing support I have received from the RVI Infant feeding team and Claire from the Amazing Start team it has been possible. The team put plans in place for me and really helped me establish a routine with my daughter. They also listened to my concerns and gave me advice. I can’t thank them enough for supporting me and I can proudly say after a lot of hard work my daughter is exclusively breastfed.