Infant feeding in Barnet

Infant feeding support is offered by all members of the Health Visiting team at the new birth visit and any follow up contacts at home or in the child health clinic. Health Visitors, community nurses and nursery nurses undertake the UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative Breastfeeding training and can provide mothers and families with information and practical support to help you achieve your feeding goals.

We also have a Breastfeeding support service which provides mother’s with information on breastfeeding, delivered by our qualified breastfeeding support workers.

Our services are aligned with the UNICEF credible, worldwide UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative.

We aim to provide sensitive and effective care, enabling mothers to make an informed choice about feeding, get breastfeeding off to a good start and overcome any challenges.

We support parents who are formula feeding their babies by providing information on choosing milks and making up feeds, and helping them to feed safely and responsively.

Our breastfeeding support service is available for all mothers that live in Barnet.

Health Visiting service

• Telephone: 0208 200 2500
• Email: CLCHT.ChildHealthInformationHub@nhs.net
• Opening hours: 9am to 5pm

Breastfeeding support service

• Phone: 07815 717055
• Email: CLCHT.Breastfeedingsupport@nhs.net
• Opening hours: 9am to 5pm

Facebook: Breastfeeding support in Barnet

Please note that during school holidays and bank holidays, the timetable will change. Check our Facebook page for the timetables during these times, as well as daily updates on drop ins running.

Your health visitor will visit between Day 10 and 14.

There are Well Baby Clinics and Breastfeeding Support Groups local to you and running throughout the week.

In specific circumstances home visits are available from the breastfeeding support service:

1. Mum has had a caesarean (within six weeks) or;
2. They have more than one child or;
3. Mum won’t leave home for cultural & religious reasons (i.e. “40 day rest period”)

Please contact our breastfeeding support service.

We greatly appreciate people volunteering their time to come and support the service, mothers and their babies. If you are interested in volunteering with us, please see below for the process involved:

Contact the infant feeding lead and register your interest. You will be required to complete a CLCH NHS Trust volunteer application form, after which we will invite you in for an informal meeting and collect copies of ID for DBS checks (we will need to complete a DBS check with CLCH, and the Royal Free Trust if you wish to be a volunteer on the postnatal ward.)

We run a volunteer peer supporter training programme, which is usually 3 hours per week, for 7 weeks. The training will be classroom based, covering a wide range of topics such as physiology of breastfeeding, supporting positioning and attachment, postnatal depression and communication.

Thereafter you will attend one of our breastfeeding support drop in groups weekly, for 6 weeks, where you will be assigned a mentor to take you through the practical parts of the training and put into practice peer supporting.

Once you have completed the training and 6 week mentoring, it is your choice if you would like to remain volunteering at the community groups, or if you would like to volunteer on the wards at Barnet Hospital (which can offer more flexibility with time i.e. volunteering in the evening and weekends).

We request a time commitment of 6 months volunteering (2 hours a week, once a week) after which time you will receive a certificate to show your training and dedication.

Additional notes

• Infant Feeding Midwifery Team: rf.bhinfantfeeding@nhs.net
• Due to conflict of interest, we cannot accept anyone involved in private maternity work (night nanny, doulas, maternity nurse etc)

• A useful open Facebook support group is available for all of our service users to join and share experiences
• NCT Helpline: 0300 330 0771, 8am to Midnight
• National Breastfeeding Helpline: 0300 100 0212, from 09:30am to 09:30pm
• La Leche League: 0345 120 2918, 24-hour Helpline
• Breast feeding network - Information about breastfeeding
• Facebook - The Breastfeeding Network Drugs in Breastmilk information service
• UNICEF - Breastfeeding and expressing
• Global health media films on all aspects of breastfeeding (available in different languages)
• UNICEF - Hand expression & positioning & attachment & maximising breastmilk films
• Infant formula and responsive bottle feeding
• UNICEF - Breast feeding & bottle feeding guides in other languages
• New baby and parent resources
• Feeding Assessment