GOLD Learning Speakers

CASTLE is a National Health and Medical Research Council funded longitudinal descriptive study of breastfeeding mothers and their babies. The CASTLE study has gathered data on nipple pain, trauma and treatment from 360 women. Nipple pain scores were collected at weeks 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8 post partum. In this presentation, Ms. Buck will disseminate the results of the study and discuss implications for lactation professionals.

More than 90% of Victorian mothers initiate breastfeeding but the number of women breastfeeding their babies decreases quickly.During the first two days of life more than half of women experience problems with latching and feeding their babies.By three months of age only half of Victorian babies are fully breastfed. In a survey of 729 Australian women with gestational diabetes 97% reported ‘ever’ breastfeeding but only 19% had breastfed for ≤ 3 months.A combination of lack of effective support and incorrect advice often results in women experiencing breastfeeding problems.Our study of first time mothers found that 80% experienced nipple pain in the early weeks and 60% had nipple damage. Babies are capable of effective breastfeeding, but too often their innate abilities are disrupted by hospital practices. In this session I will explain how I work with new mothers and their babies to overcome the disruptions of medicalised births and allow babies to breastfeed themselves. Using illustrations and examples from practice I will provide midwives with tools to support breastfeeding in birthsuite and the early hours following birth. I will show how applying the science of neonatal behaviour helps us to understand what new mother baby dyads need to transition to successful breastfeeding. This session will translate research into practice and demonstrate how we can transform outcomes for mothers and babies with small changes in practice in the first 24 hours after birth.

As many as half of well term infants leave hospital not fully breastfeeding. How these infants are supplemented matters, just as much as what they are supplemented with. In this presentation I will explain why it matters and review a range of techniques for feeding infants not at the breast including: •cup feeding •finger feeding •supply lines Using the evidence for the risks and benefits of different approaches I will describe how to assess which system is most appropriate. Hospital policies and guidelines that support the use of alternative methods of supplementary feeding are an important tool to help midwives and nurses keep infants breastfeeding. In this presentation I will describe how one hospital has created a series of policies, guidelines and parental information leaflets to reduce the use of bottles and the barriers we faced in implementing them.