Breast Feeding Peer Support

The aim of the Breast Feeding Peer Support Project is to promote and encourage breast feeding, so as to reap all the very many benefits that this brings to both mother and child throughout their lives.

Breast feeding helps with early attachment and bonding, which has significant benefits for healthy neurological development in babies.

In addition, breast milk provides complete nutrition for a baby, and babies who are breast fed are less likely to get gastroenteritis or ear infections, or to develop eczema or asthma.  There is also reduced risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and raised cholesterol later in life.

One of several important benefits to mothers who breast feed is a significant reduction in the risk of their developing ovarian or breast cancers.

West Sussex Primary Care Trust (PCT) has identified increased breast feeding as a priority for public health improvement.

Worthing Together LSP allocated £16,000 of West Sussex LAA Outcome 22 funding as a contribution to a Breast Feeding Peer Support Programme across the coastal strip. This is an excellent example of partnership working, with funding contributions from Arun, Worthing and Adur LSPs, and the provision of specialist knowledge and skills by a team of health professionals from West Sussex PCT. 

The Project is educating mothers and the general public on the benefits of breast feeding.  The aim is not only to encourage mothers to take up breast feeding but also to support them so that they breast feed exclusively for the first six months of the baby’s life.  In this way, mother and child can benefit from all the advantages that this brings.

A valuable approach is to provide mothers with support from their peers – other mothers – who are in turn supported by health professionals. The Coastal Strip Breast Feeding Peer Support Team is made up of three coordinators (a midwife, a health visitor and a nursery nurse) together with two peer support workers and two peer support assistants.

Ten-week Peer Support courses are run by the specialist team to ensure that the mothers who become peer supporters are trained and up to date, and are also aware of when they need to refer on to a health professional.  All peer supporters are supervised by the team.  The photo shows Antonia Hopkins, the Project Lead, with the Project Co-ordinators:  Elaine Fox, Dee Bell and Judith Cartwright.

Mothers can access support locally through ‘drop in’ breast feeding peer support groups established in the West Sussex County Council Children and Family Centres, including one in Worthing.

Peer supporters also provide services in Worthing Hospital on the post natal wards, encouraging new mothers to breast feed, and providing them with information on the ‘drop in’ groups. 

The Project enables mothers and fathers and extended family to get any help or support they may need.  In the early days mothers may need help with the correct positioning of the baby for breast feeding.  When mothers are planning to return to work, they may need information about expressing breast milk, borrowing breast pumps and storing the breast milk correctly.

The Project also has a telephone helpline for mothers who have queries or questions.  The number is  07770 704485

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