Women who want to breastfeed their newborn babies say they're driving hours to get help, or giving up, because of a lack of healthcare support. And those living in regional areas are the worst affected, with recent data showing those outside major cities have significantly lower breastfeeding rates.
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00:00 Well, they can have the lactation consultants, but often we're spattered all over the state.
00:06 They do have the Australian Breastfeeding Association, but again, that's a volunteer service.
00:11 They have their doctors, GPs, but they're not trained always in the specialist area.
00:17 So often, and it's many other sort of things that impact on their to actually access any
00:23 support for their health with feeding.
00:26 Feeding is seen as a natural maternal practice, isn't it?
00:30 But in practice, what proportion of women find it hard?
00:34 A lot of women, and it depends on the birth, the gestation of the baby, where they birth,
00:38 their previous history, all those factors do contribute to the mothers.
00:42 But a lot of them, and I've been working as a midwife for 40 years and running my own
00:45 clinics for 25, and it can be any baby, not just your first baby.
00:50 It can be subsequent babies that you need help to learn those babies and how to feed
00:54 them and how to negotiate motherhood.
00:57 And what sort of problems mainly do women have?
01:00 A lot of the problems are just can be varied to the baby, to the mother, just really significant
01:06 nipple trauma, under supply, poor latch, babies who have issues, and just overriding a lot
01:12 of advice that's not appropriate for the age and stages of those babies and mothers.
01:18 Women who are having problems, Jenny, also just getting over giving birth, aren't they,
01:22 and all the change that that brings.
01:24 So it can really be a stressful time.
01:27 It is a really stressful time.
01:28 And so continuity of care or having access to some other forms to support these women
01:34 would be amazing.
01:35 I do a lot of teleconferencing, and that's how I sort of, and I sort of came sort of
01:40 from the bush, but that's how it sort of my interest became more aware of when they go
01:44 home then phone calls for many, many months at different stages of lactation, where they
01:49 were trying to access help and information and it wasn't available.
01:53 So teleconferencing is useful, is it, or is it better to have that one to one face to
02:00 face integration?
02:01 Look, of course, one on one is always amazing.
02:04 FaceTime can help.
02:05 It's not the same as seeing those people, but it's better than nothing.
02:08 And when you can actually see your mother, so it is a tool we can use, but definitely
02:13 face to face is amazing.
02:14 So what help can you give women?
02:19 Understanding where their problems are.
02:20 Learning their clinical picture.
02:22 Teleconferencing can work in the clinic that I run.
02:25 Emails.
02:26 I have a lot of women in the country that we email different clinical pictures, photos,
02:32 and then manage them more with continuity and for their specific cases.
02:36 And is a big part of the answer giving medical practitioners who are working in those rural
02:40 and remote areas just more training in lactation support?
02:43 Look, it would be awesome.
02:45 Yes, I love the training up of doctors, but I feel we need more of a shift to actually
02:49 move the specialty, which is International Board of Lactation Consultants with those
02:55 girls that we could actually mainframe or oversee some of the changing practices and
03:00 train doctors on some of the stuff that we have been sort of we've been dealing with
03:05 a lot with just understanding of normal babies.
03:08 And then when we get complicated babies, that even makes it more difficult.
03:11 So yes, training of doctors, but also probably more liaison with all health professionals
03:16 about breastfeeding.
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