We took part in Subway’s Helping Hearts 5km walk around Bute Park, Cardiff on Sunday 11th August, which also happened to be Ethan’s 13-month birthday!
We managed it in 1 hour and 2 minutes, which isn’t bad with a baby! We had multiple stops to pick up Ethan’s hat every time he threw it off, and he swapped a few times between his little bike and the sling.
Here we are on the da
No photos today (hopefully tomorrow!)
I’m writing this post to celebrate UK National Breastfeeding Awareness Week. There have been many reports in the news about breastfeeding this week, some of which are shocking, such as the fact that breastfeeding rates in England have fallen for the first time in many years. Many attribute this to the Conservative coalition government cutting funding for infant feeding co-ordinators. We are lucky to live in Wales, under a Labour government, with devolved health boards.
Another startling statistic was that around 90% of women who stopped breastfeeding in the first 6-8 weeks did not want to stop. They stopped due to lack of support, be that professional support with latch or troubleshooting, or simply moral support from fellow breastfeeding mothers. In a culture where breastfeeding is not the ‘norm’ (in number at least), it can be daunting to continue breastfeeding when you have very little or no support from your family and social group. In fact, far from being ‘pressured’ and ‘intimidated’ into breastfeeding, most women feel immense social pressures from friends, family, strangers, media to formula feed.
I live in an economically deprived area with the lowest breastfeeding rates in Wales, but these rates are steadily increasing. We have infant feeding co-ordinators, midwives and health visitors who work tirelessly to help breastfeeding mothers. Our hospitals are UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) accredited due to their hard work. Step 10 of the BFI guide to successful breastfeeding is having a network if peer supporters in the community, and this is how I, and many other breastfeeding mums, spend some of my spare time. We provide help, in person and online, to mums who may be struggling with breastfeeding, and simply provide a social group of breastfeeding mums to counteract the anti-breastfeeding social message our culture emits.
This National Breastfeeding Week, I implore all breastfeeding mums to do just one small thing to help other breastfeeding mums. This could be just posting a breastfeeding photo on Facebook, or talking to a mum who is breastfeeding in public – put her at ease.
We need to be an active, dynamic breastfeeding community, our voices need to be heard, breastfeeding NEEDS to be normalised.
Happy breastfeeding!
Eeek, I can’t believe it’s been 30 days since my last post! Time truly flies when you have a little one – especially a little one who has learned to crawl (!!!). Now I literally cannot take my eyes off him, he is into everything, especially the things he shouldn’t be!
Although I haven’t posted for a while, you can all rest assured that I have been breastfeeding UNCOVERED out and about 🙂
This particular picture is from last weekend, after we had a look around Swansea market. We popped to Nando’s restaurant in Swansea for a spot of lunch – baby particularly enjoyed his chicken!
Today I Breastfed. 