DETAILS of four new breastfeeding centres for Basingstoke and Deane have finally been announced by the county council, two weeks after it rejected pleas to provide funds to keep six centres running in the borough.

As previously reported in The Gazette, Campaigning mums lost their hard-fought battle to save the vital and successful breastfeeding drop-in centres from closure after the council approved a new model of support.

But there was confusion over what alternative support would be offered to breastfeeding mums, after the council failed to provide any details about its plans to open new centres in the borough, leaving mums with just one drop-in centre to attend on a Friday morning, kept open by fundraising.

Now, the county council has announced that it will offer additional breastfeeding support at five locations in the borough:

  • Every Monday: Chineham Child Health Clinic, Christ Church Hall, Reading Road, Chineham with one-to-one breastfeeding appointments available between 9.30am and 10am, plus a breastfeeding support group from 10am to 11.30am.
  • Every Tuesday: Tadley Child Health Clinic, Tadley Community Centre, New Church Road, Tadley, breastfeeding support drop-in from 9am to 10am.
  • Every Tuesday: Bosom Buddies Breastfeeding Support Group, Tadley Methodist Church Hall, provided by a health visitor between 12noon and 1pm.
  • Every Tuesday: Child Health Clinic, Discovery Centre, Festival Place, Basingstoke, breastfeeding drop-in support from 9am to 10am.
  • First and third Tuesdays each month: Whitchurch Child Health Clinic, Gill Nethercott Centre, Winchester Street, Whitchurch, with one-to-one breastfeeding support appointments from 9.30am to 10am.

The council said that health visitor led breastfeeding support will also continue to be available at a wide variety of locations as part of its ‘business as usual’ service. Further, if a mum contacts her own health visitor team, the duty health visitor will offer breastfeeding support at the time of the call and plan any further individual follow up help required with her.

Mindy Noble, a breastfeeding counsellor, said she would not recommend the service to mums, adding: “Health visitors do a fantastic job and are generalists with a large knowledge and understanding of nought to five-year-olds. But all we do is breastfeeding and that’s why it worked so well. We are very disappointed.”

She said health visitors have limited training in breastfeeding, whereas the counsellors who ran the now closed drop-in centres had years of experience, adding: “I won’t be directing a mum to someone with just two days training [in breastfeeding] because that mum won’t get her needs met. I feel sorry for the health visitors because they don’t have the training to provide proper support.”

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