MORE mothers in Basingstoke will be offered support to continue breastfeeding their babies thanks to a £12,850 grant from Hampshire County Council.

Hampshire Breastfeeding Counselling (BFC) was awarded the funds via Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s health and wellbeing forum, and will use the cash to train volunteers to offer breastfeeding support in the community and to run a community breastfeeding drop-in for 12 months, staffed by a trained breastfeeding counsellor.

Members met at The Fox Inn, in Newfound, to celebrate receiving the funds.

Mindy Noble, a breastfeeding counsellor, said: “Research shows that 86 per cent of mums who stop breastfeeding in the first two weeks would have liked to have continued for longer.

“Breastfeeding not only reduces hospital admissions and doctors visits for babies, it also improves health outcomes for mums, reducing cancer rates and osteoporosis.

“Being breastfed is also associated with a lower risk of obesity in later life. In other words, successful breastfeeding is good for mum and baby and costs the health service less in the long run.”

BFC is also working with the head of midwifery at Basingstoke hospital, Caroline Brunt, so its trained volunteer mothers can support women on the postnatal ward.

Ms Noble said in Basingstoke there are around 40 volunteer mothers, of which 25 will be trained using funds from the new grant, which was given by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council via Hampshire County Council.

She added: “The knock on effect can be huge, because most of our volunteers have babies themselves so they are supporting mums informally all the time.

“I think when someone has done a course like this, other people hear about it and direct people to that woman because she knows more than the average mother.”

Around 20 volunteer breastfeeding peer supporters attended the celebratory event, held at The Fox Inn because it is part of Hampshire County Council’s Breastfeeding Welcome Scheme.

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