- Mobile site
- E-Newsletters
-
- News feed
- Find us on Twitter
@dailyecho
Daily Echo on Twitter
@the_saints
Saints News on Twitter
SceneSouth
Leisure news on Twitter
- Find us on Facebook
Facebook
Daily Echo on Facebook
Support service for breastfeeding mums facing closure (From Daily Echo)
When news happens, text SDE and your photos or videos to 80360. Or contact us by email and phone.
Support service for breastfeeding mums facing closure
12:44pm Monday 3rd September 2012 in News
Support service for breastfeeding mums facing closure
BREAST may be best – but a support group for breastfeeding mums faces closure unless it can raise its own funds to continue.
The drop-in service that currently runs on Tuesday mornings at the Hop-a-Long Children’s Centre in Hedge End can no longer use the venue for free.
And its Awards For All grant has come to an end and cannot be renewed as the scheme does not offer grants to existing projects.
The Southampton National Childbirth Trust (NCT), which runs the service, must now find a new free venue and raise £5,000 a year to keep providing its vital link between mums and the NHS.
This summer, Southampton NCT has raised £2,500 for the service through events, but this will only keep it going for the first few months Nicole Carpenter, a breastfeeding counsellor at the centre, said: “There are other support groups in central Southampton but these mostly just target deprived areas, so less deprived areas like Hedge End tend to get left out.
“However, it’s actually quite a socially isolated area with huge needs.”
The Department of Health recommends babies are breastfed until they are at least six months old.
Southampton Primary Care Trust reported only 34.3 per cent of Southampton’s babies were still breastfed at six weeks in 2010, which the NCT says can be due to a lack of support.
Mums are often referred to this support group by local health visitors when experiencing difficulties breastfeeding and helps reduce the workload of the already over-stretched health visitors.
Nicole said: “When asked, we found that 80 per cent of mums that came to the group would not have gone elsewhere if this service wasn’t running.”
- For more information or to help, call group leader, Jo Daniels on: 01489 781652, email: sotonbfc@nct.org.uk or visit: nct.org.uk/branches/southampton
Comments(11)
ToastyTea
says...
1:03pm Mon 3 Sep 12
Shoong
says...
1:14pm Mon 3 Sep 12
ohec
says...
1:40pm Mon 3 Sep 12
suenami71
says...
2:00pm Mon 3 Sep 12
-stiv-
says...
4:19pm Mon 3 Sep 12
ToastyTea wrote:If you work in a building full of 13 year old idiots maybe. Grow up.
Could you please put 'NSFW' in the title, some of us are at work you know and that picture isn't really suitable..Jesus.
jonnyx
says...
5:11pm Mon 3 Sep 12
Shoong wrote:hmmm, doesn't really work if you actually have to write the homonym in yourself to make your little joke does it?
What does a 'breast feeding councillor do exactly?
AKAEKB
says...
9:40pm Mon 3 Sep 12
There is no other breastfeeding support at the Hop Along Centre. It was cut with one weeks notice (the new manager is a man, surprise surprise!).
And the NHS recommends exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months and breastfeeding as part of a varied diet until a year. The World Health Organisation recommend 2 years!
AKAEKB
says...
9:41pm Mon 3 Sep 12
prettyflower
says...
4:56pm Wed 5 Sep 12
febfiesta
says...
5:15pm Wed 5 Sep 12
es.info
There are also other support groups running outside of central Southampton - for more details, contact your local Children's Centre, midwife or health visitor.
ToastyTea says...
12:59pm Mon 3 Sep 12