by Sarah Edwards – Scottish Programme Manager, BfN
Things are changing for breastfeeding support and the Breastfeeding Network in Ayrshire this month. So it felt like a good time to look back on what BfN has built over the last 20 or so years.
When my first child was born 19 years ago, my local BfN group in Ayr helped me work out how breastfeeding could work for me and helped me see that there were so many different ways to parent. The support empowered me to pick the bits of the swirl of advice that surrounds new parents that felt right for us and the confidence to ignore those that didn’t!
Right from the start of my volunteering I have been passionate about the importance of peer support for new parents and of people being able to access evidence based, non-judgemental information so that they can make informed decisions about how they want to feed their baby. I’m not from Ayrshire, but I have lived here for more years than I have lived anywhere else and it is home. My training and time volunteering with BfN showed me that breastfeeding rates in Ayrshire are very low.
Many women at the groups have told me that they didn’t have any support from their friends and family when it came to breastfeeding. When the opportunity became available to work for BfN developing peer support in 2008, I jumped at the chance to not only do something I loved, but also to help build more support for the community I was part of and for families and communities across North, South and East Ayrshire.
Over the years my paid role with BfN has changed and developed, sometimes there were less hours and sometimes more as funding ebbed and flowed. But always at the heart it has been about working with amazing local volunteers, families and NHS partners to ensure that as many mums as possible are able to reach their infant feeding goals. Over the years BfN has tried various different models of support and spent a significant amount of time looking for funding of different sizes and from a variety of sources. We are committed to working with communities and keeping support going, even when funding is scarce, so that local families can trust that support will be there when they need it.
I love how embedded in Ayrshire BfN is: the room I volunteer in on a Thursday morning is the same one I was scared to walk into with my 2-week-old baby in 2005. Some of the babies I met when I was first a volunteer are now having their own babies and looking for breastfeeding support! All the groups have a different feeling and atmosphere, linked to the fact they are run by women from each of the communities they are based in and that the mums themselves help shape the set up and running of the groups.
In 2019, I worked with colleagues in the NHS to submit an application to Scottish Government describing what sort of support we thought could make a real difference to breastfeeding rates in Ayrshire. We worked together to write an application, using all our cumulative learning, experience, and knowledge of local communities. It was a real ‘blue sky thinking’ moment. It was the first time BfN and NHS Ayrshire & Arran had had an opportunity to apply for funding in such a collaborative way, and we were all delighted when the funding came through.
Setting the service up was a huge amount of work, with lots of learning along the way on what worked and what didn’t. Bringing together different teams in a new way had some challenges, but everyone involved, both the brilliant BfN staff who have given their all every day and the NHS teams working alongside, us had the same goal – to better support families in Ayrshire. Together we built something to be proud of, even when Covid came along and we needed to quickly adapt to a whole new way of working and of supporting families.
Breastfeeding rates in Ayrshire have been increasing and the well-known and trusted integrated service we built, has made a difference to thousands of new mums and babies over the last five years. Being a part of designing, setting up and supporting this innovative service is something I feel honoured to have been a part of. As a new provider takes on the service in July, I wish them well and I look forward to working with them, together with our ongoing community-based peer support groups. BfN has built a strong foundation for peer support in Ayrshire and I hope the partnership working and learning continues so that many more families can be supported.
Being part of BfN is definitely more than just a job, it has been my greatest privilege over the last 20 years to work with so many brilliant and dedicated staff and volunteers who gave up their time, most often with small babies and children themselves, to support other new mums and families in their communities.
When I look at all the BfN staff and volunteers, past and present, across Ayrshire I see a whole network of support spread out across the area that gently but with strength, compassion and dedication, holds space for so many women, families and babies as they take those first steps into parenthood.
For updates and the latest information on the service, please check the Ayrshire & Arran page and follow them on social media.