A Guide to Supporting Breastfeeding for the Medical Profession

This book is a practical guide for medical practitioners as they navigate through breastfeeding problems that occur in day-to-day practice.

If mothers have a breastfeeding complication they are often directed to their GP. In complex situations, medical staff will be making decisions around what treatment plan to follow and whether a mother can keep breastfeeding. In recent years there has been growing evidence that medical professionals often advise mothers to stop breastfeeding while undergoing treatment, when in reality this was not a necessary step. In a time when breastfeeding rates are decreasing, it is important that medical professionals give accurate advice and support a mother?s choice to breastfeed if the situation allows it. A Guide to Supporting Breastfeeding for the Medical Profession includes contributions from a wide range of medical professionals and each chapter is written with the practitioner in mind. Contributors include GPs, paediatricians, neonatologists, lactation specialists and midwives.

Doctors have a vital role to play in supporting and facilitating breastfeeding, and without the appropriate knowledge they can often inadvertently sabotage it. This book will be of interest to GPs and paediatricians as well as nurse prescribers, midwives and health visitors.

1. The Role of Primary Care and the GP in Supporting Breastfeeding 2. Why breastfeeding matters 3. Why are breastfeeding rates in the UK so low? 4. Contraindications to breastfeeding 5. Breastfeeding and Infant Sleep – what medical practitioners need to know 6. Birth experience and breastfeeding 7. Breastfeeding complications 8. Pharmacokinetics of Drug Transfer into breastmilk 9. Compatibility of commonly used drugs in lactation 10. Supporting breastfeeding women with mental health issues 11. Tongue tie 12. Colic and reflux in the breastfed baby 13. Why provide donor human milk? 14. Breastfeeding a baby with health complications 15. Breastfeeding sick babies 16. Infant Feeding in Emergencies: what doctors need to know 17. What GPs need to know about breastmilk substitutes 18. Stopping breastfeeding 19. Where to find out more

Amy Brown is Professor of Child Public Health at Swansea University, where she has published over 100 research papers and books examining psychological, cultural and societal barriers to breastfeeding. Her research seeks to shift our perception of breastfeeding from an individual mothering issue to a wider public health challenge.

Wendy Jones is a pharmacist, with over 25 years of experience as a breastfeeding support worker for the Breastfeeding Network (BfN). She runs the BfN Drugs in Breastmilk Service and has presented widely to healthcare professionals, volunteers and mothers on this subject. She qualified as an independent pharmacist prescriber but is now retired.