"Pregnancy and postpartum journey"

The support I received from Meg at the Breastfeeding Centre of WA was by far the most valuable and impactful part of my entire prenatal and postnatal experience.

Throughout my pregnancy and early postpartum period, I often felt under-informed, unsupported, and overwhelmed by the conflicting advice I received from various care providers. In contrast, the care I received at the Breastfeeding Centre was exceptional. The team there offered practical, evidence-based, and compassionate support that empowered me to overcome serious feeding challenges. Early on, my daughter was losing too much weight, and while we received well-meaning help from visiting midwives and child health nurses, our situation needed the specialised knowledge that only the Breastfeeding Centre could provide.

The hands-on guidance we received helped me to improve my feeding technique, understand effective pumping, and gave my daughter the help she needed to learn how to better feed. My husband was also included in the process, learning how to support both myself and our daughter with bottle-feeding and ongoing care. This holistic approach made a significant difference not only to our feeding journey, but to our confidence as new parents.

The one area I feel the service could improve is access to a lactation consultant on the postnatal hospital ward. After a c-section, I remained in hospital for three days and made repeated requests to see a lactation consultant before discharge. Unfortunately, due to limited availability, I went home without having established breastfeeding, without access to a breast pump, and without any personalised support to get started. These early days were incredibly stressful, and it’s clear to me that having access to a lactation consultant from the Breastfeeding Centre during my hospital stay could have made a huge difference.

Additionally, I would have benefited from access to prenatal lactation education from the centre, which could have better prepared me for feeding and helped to set realistic expectations.

In summary, the Breastfeeding Centre of WA provided me with the equipment, education, and support I needed to successfully breastfeed my baby. Once I was able to access the service, the care was faultless, and both my husband and I are deeply grateful. Expanding this service—especially to include greater accessibility to postnatal in-hospital consultation and prenatal education—would ensure more families can benefit as we did.