Infant feeding

About our infant feeding service

Welcome to infant feeding, we have a team of specialists ready to help you with your feeding journey. Here you'll find useful information about feeding your baby.

We provide feeding support for the first 28 days after having your baby, or whist you are under the care of a community midwife.

Closeness and skin to skin contact frequently helps you learn about your baby’s feeding cues. You can expect your baby may feed 5 to 6 times in their first 24 hours. After this point, your baby will start to feed more frequently taking 8-12 feeds over a 24 hour period.

It’s useful to keep a diary for feed times, length of feeds if breastfeeding, amounts of milk if bottle feeding and if your baby has had a wet or dirty nappy.

We recommend that you feed your baby responsively rather than sticking to a strict regime for both breast and bottle fed babies, ensuring babies have 8-12 feeds in 24 hours. For breastfed babies, periods of cluster feeding is very normal and can occur during the day or night. During this time your baby may feed quite a lot during a 3-4 hour period.

Infant feeding and Covid-19

NHS Start for Life have put together this valuable information for new parents around infant feeding and the Covid-19 pandemic.

UNICEF have provided information around breastfeeding safely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Support you will receive from us

we will help you to understand the importance of closeness and responsiveness for mother/baby wellbeing
how to hold your baby for feeding
information on responsive feeding

Breastfeeding support

how to hand express
understanding the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding
understand when your baby is getting enough milk
how to access help and support when you have been discharged from hospital

Formula feeding support

how to sterilise equipment and how to make up feeds
feeding your baby first formula milks
information and importance of paced bottle feeding
the benefits of limiting the number of people who feed your baby

Blocked ducts

Sore breasts can be a painful and can occur when the milk flow in your breast is blocked. This can happne if you breastfeed or formula feed.

Your breast may feel tender, there may or may not be redness or a hard spot or sore lump in your breast. If the area becomes swollen, painful, hot to touch or you have flu like symptoms you may have developed an infection known as mastitis. If you develop any of these symptoms seek help from your midwife or GP.

Observing your baby’s nappies is a really good way of knowing if your baby is getting enough milk.

Off to the best start breastfeeding leaflet.pdf [pdf] 4MB shows images of how your baby’s poo changes during their first week. If you feel concerned about any feeding issues please contact your midwife. Our specialist midwives will be able to provide extra support.

If you are under the care of your midwife and need support with breastfeeding please contact:

Infant Feeding Specialist Midwife Leigh-Anne Hartley on: 07824 417 802

Meet the infant feeding team

Hello my name is Leigh-Anne... and I am the Infant Feeding Coordinator and Baby Friendly Lead for Mid Yorkshire. I have worked for the Trust for 6 years, rotating from labour ward, birth centres, post and antenatal ward and community. I run one Specialist Feeding Clinic per week which runs from the Families and Babies Hub (FAB) in Wakefield centre. This clinic is where I see families struggling with complex Feeding needs. My Infant Feeding role also sees me upholding the Baby Friendly Standards which protect breast milk and supports good standards of education for both staff and families. We are fortunate to have worked hard enough to be accredited with Baby Friendly Stage 2, and we are now working towards Stage 3. These are exciting times for maternity, where new projects and resources are being created for staff and families, to allow women to make informed decisions about how they choose to feed their babies. Our goal is to create a healthier population for the next generation.

Hello my name is Zoe...I am the Infant Feed Lead for Children Services and part of the Children Educators, including Children’s wards and the Neonatal Unit. My background is that I qualified in 2009 and began work on the Neonatal Unit in Leeds. I moved into health visiting and began a journey with Mid Yorkshire Hospitals in 2016. My role is now Infant feeding Lead, I help support families within our children’s wards and Neonatal unit with any feeding difficulties alongside supporting staff in providing best practice around infant feeding. I work alongside the Maternity Infant Feeding team to provide a strong educated workforce in Feeding. The Neonatal Unit are proud to have achieved a stand-alone accreditation at stage 1 for UNICEF BFI. I am also on track to work for the trust as a Frenulotomy Practitioner within Children Services to provide support to in-patient families where they are struggling with feeding due to a Tongue tie. I work very closely with our Maternity Frenulotomy Practitioners.

Hello our names are Katie and Donna and we are the tongue-tie Lead Midwives for the Trust. Most babies have a lingual frenulum and this is normal anatomy. However in some babies this lingual frenulum may restrict tongue mobility and function, and a division of the lingual frenulum may be recommended to improve feeding. This procedure is called a frenulotomy. We work alongside the Infant Feeding Team and our role is to review those babies who are experiencing feeding problems with a suspected tongue-tie. We are fully qualified to assess tongue-ties and perform frenulotomy procedures. We run two specialist clinics each week at Dewsbury Hospital for babies up to 6 weeks of age.

Hello my name is Jody... I'm a maternity support worker out in community (Pinderfields Hospital).

I help support our women when struggling with feeding problems I get a lot of satisfaction with helping women on their feeding journeys and find it a pleasure to be able to help and support them through this. I also help cover breastfeeding clinics with our infant feeding coordinator Leigh-Anne.

Hello my name is Andrea... I'm a Community Maternity Support worker (based at Dewsbury and District Hospital)

I've worked at the Trust for 17 years, for the past 13 years I have been a breastfeeding champion. I’m extremely passionate when delivering women centred care, empowering new mums to achieve their Breastfeeding goals, both in the antenatal and postnatal period.

Having a new baby is both exciting and scary my role is to offer additional support, face to face or over the telephone especially in the early days and weeks whilst establishing breastfeeding, this support is vital whilst overcoming common problems such as sore nipples, position and attachment, milk supply, engorgement to name but a few.

I also support in the specialist breastfeeding clinic Baby Café at Birstall, this is a great transition from midwifery care to the Health Visiting team.

FAB - Breastfeeding support

We know how beneficial additional breastfeeding support can be to new parents.

Our amazing charity partners FAB (families and babies Wakefield) join our maternity team at Pinderfields Hospital and provide support new parents with breastfeeding.

If you don’t get chance to meet one of the FAB team’s Peer Supporters, please ask one of our midwives and they can put you in touch. They offer telephone, one-to-one support and home visits if required. They also run weekly breastfeeding support groups.

FAB are available 24/7 on 01924 851 901

Contact details

FAB Wakefield Website

FAB Wakefield Facebook Page

Visit FAB in Wakefield

31 All Saints Walk, The Ridings Centre, Wakefield, WF1 1US

9.30am – 3.30pm Monday to Friday
12.30pm – 3pm on Saturdays
10.00am – 3pm on Sundays

Infant feeding support organisations

Health Visitors

If you are under the care of your health visitor and need support with breastfeeding please contact the following services

Wakefield single point of contact 01924 310130

Kirklees single point of contact 03003 045555 or Text for support 07520 618867

Support organisations

Auntie Pam's support mums-to-be in Kirklees. They offer help, guidance and information for mums and families through centres in Dewsbury and Huddersfield.
The Baby Buddy App provides trusted, evidence-based information and self-care tools to help parents build their knowledge and confidence during the transition to parenthood and throughout the early stages of parenting.
Baby Café is a network of breastfeeding drop-in centres. Find your nearest drop-in by entering your postcode
Bliss is a special-care baby charity that provides vital support and care to premature and sick babies across the UK The Breastfeeding Network provides breastfeeding support and information
FAB provide peer support services offering evidenced based information & support to help improve health & well-being within families. They offer antenatal classes and breast pump hire.
First Steps Nutrition Trust is an independent public health nutrition charity that provides information and resources to support eating well from pre-conception to five years.
La Leche League offers mother-to-mother support with breastfeeding. Lactation Consultants of Great Britain can help you find a lactation consultant near you.
National Childbirth Trust (NCT) is a charity that provides information and support on all aspects of pregnancy, birth and early parenthood, including breastfeeding.
Sure Start Children's Centres Some local children’s centres offer breastfeeding support groups for families. Use the link to find your nearest centre.
Twins and Multiple Births Association (TAMBA) has information about feeding twins and triplets.UK Association for Milk Banking has information about using donated breast milk if your baby is premature or ill, and how to donate breast milk.
West Yorkshire Sling Library An independent carrier resource based in Leeds and Wakefield, we have been working since 2011 to offer families safe and comfortable carrying solutions. Our drop-in sessions around Leeds and Wakefield offer free sling and carrier advice and fitting services.

Antenatal Feeding Education:

The following places offer online resources / courses free of charge for families. They provide parents-to-be with excellent information and knowledge so that you can fully prepare for your feeding journey.

www.fabtraining.co.uk

Online breastfeeding course (click on the play icon to begin)

Thriving Kirklees offer free online resources to parents living in North Kirklees

Locala also support breastfeeding