Infant feeding in Brent

All of our Health Visitors and Breastfeeding Peer Support Workers are trained under the UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative, to provide you with the most up-to-date knowledge and evidence-based advice to help support you with your breastfeeding journey. This includes building close and loving relationships, responsive breastfeeding, safe bottle feeding, and introduction of solid foods.

Breast feeding support is available at ‘drop-in’ sessions held at various locations across Brent, at our local Children Centres. No appointment is required.

We also 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 families that live in Brent. We can provide support and information to families following the birth of your baby.

You can call our single point access (SPA) service number on 0208 102 4900 or email clcht.brentinfantfeeding@nhs.net if you require any information or support. 

Your Health Visitor will contact you to arrange a home visit between day 10 and 14 after the birth of your baby and will refer you to one of our breastfeeding clinics if required .

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.

We also provide ‘drop-in’ Healthy Nutrition Sessions. These will provide you with useful information on topics such as; healthy eating, introduction of solids, food labelling, portion control & fussy eating, so that you can ensure your baby has the best start.

Please ask your health visitor for more information. 

• 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

The ‘Start4Life Breastfeeding Friend’ is a ChatBot for mums who are looking for help and advice about breastfeeding. Support can make a real difference to successful breastfeeding, so building a network of people to share tips and advice with or attending breastfeeding support sessions and talking to your health visitor can make a real difference.

To access the ChatBot, simply open Facebook Messenger and search Start4Life BreastFeeding Friend or visit m.me/Start4LifeBreastFeedingFriend to get started.

You can also access support from Start4Life through Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa

For more information, advice and tips on breastfeeding visit NHS - Start4Life.