Being a breastfeeding peer supporter

Volunteer breastfeeding peer supporters are among the unsung heroes of the breastfeeding and chest feeding world. This week we’re exploring who they are and what they do. 

I’m joined by two peer supporters, Hilary and Katrina, who volunteer for Treasure Chest, in York. We talk about how they came to train as supporters, what they enjoy and find challenging about the role, and how they help families with their feeding journey.

Maybe being a peer supporter is something that you might be interested in? Check out what’s available locally, or in the UK, visit the Breastfeeding Network website to see if there’s a project near you: What is peer support? - The Breastfeeding Network. You can also train with the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers from anywhere in the UK: Breastfeeding Training – ABM

Find out more about Treasure Chest on Instagram at @treasurechestyork or on their website https://treasurechest.org.uk/

We talk in the episode about child loss and bereavement, as Hilary’s son Kester died when he was two. Hilary recommends some useful resources here: https://www.careforthefamily.org.uk/support-for-you/family-life/bereavement-support/bereaved-parent-support/

My new book, ‘Supporting the Transition from Breastfeeding: a Guide to Weaning for Professionals, Supporters and Parents’, is out now.

You can get 10% off the book at the Jessica Kingsley press website, that's uk.jkp.com using the code MMPE10 at checkout.

Follow me on Twitter @MakesMilk and on Instagram  @emmapickettibclc or find out more on my website www.emmapickettbreastfeedingsupport.com

This podcast is presented by Emma Pickett IBCLC, and produced by Emily Crosby Media.

Transcript

Hi. I'm Emma Pickett, and I'm a lactation consultant from London. When I first started calling myself Makes Milk, that was my superpower at the time, because I was breastfeeding my own two children. And now I'm helping families on their journey. I want your feeding journey to work for you from the very beginning to the very end. And I'm big on making sure parents get support at the end to join me for conversations on how breastfeeding is amazing. And also, sometimes really, really hard. We'll look honestly and openly about that process of making milk. And of course, breastfeeding and chest feeding are a lot more than just making milk. 

Emma Pickett  00:48

Thank you very much for joining me for today's episode. I've got two people with me today, Hilary and Katrina, who are both peer supporters from York, and we're going to have a good old natter about peer supporters, breastfeeding peer supporters, and I will start by saying that I am one of them. I've literally just come back from doing a peer supporter group in Haringey, North London, even though I'm sort of wearing an ibclc hat, I'm in that room as a peer supporter. And despite that, I feel I have the right to say that peer supporters are absolutely the bedrock of breastfeeding happening in the UK. We can have another conversation about whether that's necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, but they hold breastfeeding relationships up, and they make them happen, and they help people to reach their goals, and they are legends of the breastfeeding and chest feeding world in the UK. So thank you Katrina and Hilary for being legends, and thank you very much for joining me today to talk to be about your story. So before we get started, let's do a little little bit of an intro about your life pre breastfeeding. So before you became a peer supporter, before you even breastfed your own children, and everybody who's a peer supporter has breastfed their own children, tell us a little bit about what your world was like, and what did you know about breastfeeding before you had your own kids? Katrina, let's start with you.

Katrina  02:05

So I now have an 18 month old. So I have been breastfeeding for 18 months, and became a peer supporter in about February this year. I qualified before becoming pregnant, before breastfeeding. I work in innovation research and development. So I spend lots of time doing lots of technical thinking, quite a nice independent life. My time was my own, and I worked full time, and I don't do that anymore. I just work three days a week. So yeah, life has changed a lot since having a lovely little person in my world. Definitely.

Emma Pickett  02:38

Oh, lovely to hear that. So tell me a little bit about your little person. Are you comfortable to give me little person names, or what's your little person's name?

Katrina  02:46

She's Esme. So she was born on Christmas Eve, 2022 she was a little bit earlier than I anticipated. My husband was hoping for two weeks off over Christmas. Instead, he built a set of drawers and I went into labor. She came a bit early, early, early, or just a couple of weeks. I think she was between 10 and 14 days early, depending on whose maths you agreed with. So not massively early, but enough to be a sleepy baby early.

Emma Pickett  03:16

Yes, one of those with the great pretenders, potentially that Catherine Stair calls them. 

Katrina  03:21

Yeah, 

Emma Pickett  03:22

37/38 weekers aren't always super easy, but we can talk a bit more about your breastfeeding experience in a minute. Yeah, thanks. Katrina. Hilary, tell me about your life pre children. 

Hilary  03:32

Yeah. So I used to work in fundraising, which I've just given up actually, after kind of 20 years in and out of the fundraising world. So I had a few friends who'd breastfed. And actually my line manager at the time I went on maternity leave had to breastfed her four children, including twins. So when I was pregnant, she was well, she was really excited, and yeah, we had some breastfeeding conversations as well. But yeah, so I felt kind of positive about breastfeeding and that it was something I wanted to do, but not that I'd had a massive amount of experience about it. 

Emma Pickett  04:10

Yeah, I don't think that's such an unusual UK story. So your UK experience as a breastfeeding mum, both of you and you know, obviously you were both kind of giving it a go, but you didn't necessarily come from a world of a lot of breastfeeding experience. I did it. Did you have family members that are breastfed? Were you breastfed yourselves?

Hilary  04:28

I was breastfed, and so was my husband. I didn't have family members who who were close, who'd had children before me. So yeah, I had a couple of friends who I'd kind of hung out with and seeing them breastfeed, but probably not got into the kind of nitty gritty of their breastfeeding journey, or if they'd had challenges, or anything like that. But I did actually have a friend who was a peer supporter, but her son was nine when mine was born, so it seemed like a very you know, she wasn't still breastfeeding, and she was. Encouraging, but I hadn't, hadn't, kind of heard about her breastfeeding story, as it happened,

Emma Pickett  05:06

okay? And Katrina, what about your sort of personal experience? Do you being breastfed yourself? 

Katrina  05:11

Yeah, so I was breastfed, and I was told that I self weaned at nine months. Did? I don't know, but I had friends that breastfed, and I always knew I was one of these people, like many people are, that said I'd love to do it if it's possible. And I look now, I look back on that now with a bit of sadness, because I think that's a defense mechanism. You say, if I might not be able to do this, it'll be fine. My boss is actually a peer supporter elsewhere in Yorkshire, so that she is a great ally and a great support. And then I actually took the antenatal course with treasure chest, so I had some good grounding in what to expect.

Emma Pickett  05:51

So Treasure Chest is the name of the charity that you both volunteer with, Treasure Chest York, and it's a great name. Is it treasure chest, because chests are involved in breastfeeding? I don't know. Do you know any of the history of the name? I'm

Hilary  06:05

always bit curious about that. We weren't around when it was named. But yeah, we should ask, shouldn't we?

Katrina  06:11

We should say we're not actually a charity yet. Are we?

Hilary  06:14

Not officially? No, we're in the process of administration.

Emma Pickett  06:18

Okay, thanks for clearing that up. That's good to know. Well, I know Caroline Bolton, who's been involved with the ABM for many, many years, and you know, runs the helpline and runs the training and is also a big part of treasure chest York, and I know what a very respected and helpful organization you are. So I'm really glad that you are both able to join me today. So you had your children or child, and you started breastfeeding. Now we could have a whole hour on your individual breastfeeding experiences, but before we go down that road, let's, let's give a flavor of how your breastfeeding experiences went. When you wrote to me, Katrina, you beautifully used the word beige, which I loved. You said I had a very beige breastfeeding experience, so Katrina, and actually that's, that's good to know, because actually some people think that you can only be a peer supporter if you've had the opposite of a beige experience, that it must be the people that have had terrible pain and have really struggled and and they finally, kind of had an epiphany and came to breastfeeding experience. And it's almost like a Hollywood story that you know you you're helped by peer supporters, and you come through the woods, and you finally come out the other side of it, and you become a peer support yourself. But it's the beige people too that also become peer supporters. Tell us. Tell us about your beige time with Esme.

Katrina  07:33

So because Esme was born over Christmas, we couldn't actually access treasure chest in York for quite a while. So we did see Caroline Bolton, and I think that probably set us off in the right direction, which is why my breastfeeding experience is so beige, because we got good support early. Esme was of quite a sleepy baby. So we expressed we did nipple shields, but actually after after six or eight weeks, we actually got off to quite a good start and haven't really had any major challenges since then. And long may feeding continue. It's, it's going well,

Emma Pickett  08:08

yeah, that's, that's great to hear. Hooray for that. And Hilary, I guess we could say, rather than you being beige, you're a bit rainbow, you've had some different experiences. Tell us a little bit about your your story. 

Hilary  08:18

I remember when I was pregnant, I used to go into the central library in York and kind of look at the pregnancy and birth and parenting books, and I remember seeing the womanly art of breastfeeding on the shelf, and it's for those who don't know, it's quite a chunky book. It's and I remember thinking to myself, there cannot be that much to say about breastfeeding, like it can't be that complicated. So I didn't pick it up and read it. And then, when my first son was a week old, I had mastitis and had it really badly. I had it in both breasts at the same time, and just I'd never felt so ill. It was awful. And then I recovered from that. And then when he was eight weeks, I had mastitis again. And then, oh, Hillary. I think it was partly because we went to a festival and when he was really young, which is a bit overdoing things. And so I was kind of struggling. And so after that, I was like, actually, I will just read everything. So I did go into the library and borrow the womanly art of breastfeeding and read it cover to cover. And I also went along to treasure chest and just cried on a Pierce Porter's shoulder and said, like, this is too hard. And I never wanted to stop, but I did need to cry to somebody and say, it's really hard. And she gave me some really good tips about kind of identifying when I might be heading towards mastitis and dealing with it early, which were really helpful, but actually the most helpful thing was just that, that she let me sit there and cry, and she, I remember she had a three year old on her lap, and she was like reading a story to the three year old, and also listening to my story and letting me cry. So, so things picked up after that. So. Yeah, that was good. And that child is now nearly 11, and continued to breastfeed for a long time without too much going wrong after that. And then in 2016 I had my second child, Kester, and he was a very sleepy baby and had jaundice, and so we were readmitted to hospital on day three. I mean, it turned out that he was actually sleepy because he was having seizures, and we just hadn't recognized that's what they were. So I then expressed for him, and he was fed through a tube while the doctors tried to get the seizures under control, which they did. And whenever he woke up from the seizures, he breastfed beautifully. It was, yeah, a midwife came around and said, like, he looks like an illustration in a book of how to have a really deep latch. But he was just much too sleepy because of the seizures. And it was, it kind of carried on a bit like that. Actually, when the seizures got worse, he got sleepy. We went into hospital for tube feeding, then adjusted the the medication, it got better, but it was always it became clear as he got older that his development was delayed as well, and even with seizures under control, he had quite a lot of difficulties in terms of his muscle tone and his development things like that. So breastfeeding was really important for him, partly because once we got onto solids, he was really slow to take solids because of his delayed development. And also when if he got an infection, his seizures always got worse. So just knowing that I was giving him the best chance of not getting bad infections through all of the lovely antibodies was really good. And Kester died when he was two years old through complications relating to flu. And then after that, 18 months later, I had my third son, Lewis, who is also breastfed and still breastfeeding at nearly four, although not very much and not every day at the moment. So I'm kind of listening to your podcasts about people coming to the end of their breastfeeding journey and thinking, you know, when is it going to be us?

Emma Pickett  12:09

Yeah, gosh, last stage. Yeah, possibly. But who knows. Sometimes they surprise us. They look like they're finishing. Actually, I went to someone called Lucy for the podcast, and she really thought she was finishing. And then her daughter went, No. She wrote this beautiful poem, and then her daughter went, No. Adulthood, nope, not done. That was a few weeks of delay. And back here I am again. So you wrote a beautiful article for the magazine, for the Association of breastfeeding mothers about Kester. And thank you very much for sharing your story with Kester. And I think that article, I wish everybody could read it, not just members of the ABM, because it's such a beautiful article for people who work with breastfeeding families to understand why Breastfeeding can really, really matter, and how important it can be in it. And obviously there was a lot about kesta story, and please tell me if I'm projecting stuff onto you here, but that wasn't in your control. Yeah, and you, you couldn't control, but you you absolutely could control the breastfeeding, and you could, as you say, reduces risk of infection and and give him oxytocin, and give him calm and and have that connection with him. And, yeah, I'm Thank you very much for telling us about Kester when, when you look back at that time, you must, I'm guessing breastfeeding feels very special, and lots of the memories with Kester around breastfeeding. Do you think that's made you a different kind of peer supporter?

Hilary  13:26

It's hard to say, because obviously I don't know what I'd have been like otherwise, but I think it's probably made me a bit more confident in talking to people either just occasionally, somebody will say that they've had a child who's died and that, you know, they've come with a subsequent child, or occasionally somebody will come who's exclusively expressing and feeding through a tube or something like that. And so they're all really different experiences. But actually, just not to be scared of it and to think, you know, that's normal life for this family can be valuable. And we were part of a network of families with children with additional needs in York, and there were a couple of other breastfeeding families in that as well. So, and I think our bond with one another is special as well through both of those circumstances.

Emma Pickett  14:16

Yeah, do you? Do you use the term rainbow baby for Lewis?  Does that feel an uncomfortable term? What do you feel about it?

Hilary  14:23

I don't do it at all. I know that for some families, that's a term that they really like to use, and it's not something that I relate to at all. And I think it's, yeah, it's different for different families.

Emma Pickett  14:36

Yeah, I think your point about not being frightened when someone has had a difficult experience or lost a child, I think that's that's really important, because peer supporters cannot know everything. They cannot have experienced everything, and you know, they cannot empathize with everything. And I'm guessing, in some ways, you know, when you meet somebody, perhaps, who has had a child that's died previously, that's quite frightening for a peer support. Because they think, Oh, my God, how do I talk to this person? How do I, you know, what do I say? Is it, should I not mention them? Should I not talk about their other child? I mean, again, this could be a whole hour in itself. But if you were talking to a peer supporter, and they looked on the form and saw, okay, this child, they did have a child that died previously, what would you want that peer supporter to know what would you want them to have, sort of in their arsenal before they meet that family? 

Hilary  15:24

I think it's just always good to say what was your child's name, and do you want to tell me anything about them? Because I think always the focus would be on the breastfeeding child that they've come with and and that that would be the focus. But we also want to acknowledge the child who's died. And even, yeah, just to ask their name, or maybe how old were they, I think that's that's often relevant information for supporting the current breastfeeding journey. But yeah, just to acknowledge them.

Emma Pickett  15:58

Kester was two, which is obviously very different from someone who's, you know, lost a baby in the very early stages of their life, or, you know, in the first days and weeks. And you're right, sometimes it is important to have that information, because if someone has lost a child very early on, they may be more anxious around feeding, they may be more worried about weight gain. So I know sometimes they're, you know, they have special health visitors who are assigned to them. They may have a different red book, different charting, and, you know, they may have a different level of support. So, you know, it is important to get that information, but obviously it's also very important in terms of humanity and kindness and and I think

Hilary  16:33

also you just won't always get it right. And i i Sometimes I just should know better, and I forget, or I kind of get startled by it, or because you don't expect it to come, and just kind of be gentle with yourself, and if you get it wrong, then just say, I'm really sorry. Can we start this conversation again? And I'll do better, but don't think that you're going to have the perfect conversation, because that doesn't exist. 

Emma Pickett  17:00

No, that's a good point. And and no peer supporter can ever be perfect. No, you know ibclc, he's gotten 100% of the exam. Can ever be perfect when it comes to a breastfeeding conversation, that's that's not possible. We're just imperfect people rubbing up against each other. I want to ask you a question Larry, that I might get wrong. So help me along with this. Do you get support? I mean, is there ever a conversation when something is triggering for you? I mean, the word triggering is a word that's a bit fashionable at the moment, and I don't necessarily know we we fully understand what it means. Do you do you need to work extra hard if you're with a family and and things come up that remind you of Kester or remind you of difficult times? Do you get? Do you get sort of, sort of therapy or anything that, or debriefing that helps you with that? Or do you feel like you're now at a place where Kester story has strengthened you, rather than there's something you have to worry about being reminded of? 

Hilary  17:53

So when he died... So that was January 2019, and I had a month off, peer supporting. And then when I went back, the person who organized the Rota, I just said for the first few times, can I be an extra? So we we would typically have two peer supporters in a drop in group and or sometimes a trainee on top of that. So I said, can I just be an extra? Because I don't quite know how it's going to go, and I want to be able to leave if I need to. So she said, Yes, of course. And actually, it was fine. Nothing was ever too difficult. It was a bit of a strange feeling. I remember supporting somebody with a five week old baby, six weeks after Kester died, and thinking like your baby's lived their whole life in the time that since he's died. And that was a really strange thought, but like we go on with it, and I think often when you're peer supporting, you're really focused on that family, and you're really trying to listen to them and give them your full attention. And that can actually be really good, because you're so focused on them that everything else kind of goes into the background. The only time that I find it hard is because the first sign for him that something wasn't right was that he was very sleepy and that he he wasn't latching on. And so when I meet a baby that's really sleepy, I kind of jump to, you know, they've probably got an inherent genetic epilepsy, and I realize in my head that there are so many more common reasons for babies to be sleepy than that, but so I have to kind of reign myself back a bit that, yeah, sometimes newborns are sleepy, and there's so many other reasons, and we don't actually need to be involving hospital ward immediately, but I mean, now it's more than five years ago, so I've come across a lot of sleepy babies since then, and it hasn't ever, in fact, turned out to be epilepsy. So yeah, so now it's kind of far enough behind, but also. And I can always debrief with another peer supporter, either the person who's there, or there's somebody that I could I could phone if I needed to.

Emma Pickett  20:08

Yeah, thanks. Thanks for sharing that, Hilary. So in terms of becoming peer supporters, then Katrina, tell us about what you led What led you to start to train and and tell us about your experience of training.

Katrina  20:19

And so I've always volunteered in life. So I've always done I used to lead guide units. My last voluntary role before I got pregnant, was an appropriate adult in police custody for young adults and vulnerable people who need somebody there when they're very sadly arrested. So I've always volunteered. And I've always done some volunteering in that, in that last role in particular that's required, quite some knowledge, some training. You've really had to invest in it. I'd done that role volunteering in police custody for a number of years, and I'd just seen the cycle of young people being arrested coming back in, and I realized I don't particularly want to be doing this when I'm very pregnant. Police custody is an interesting place, and not somewhere that's fun to be when you're pregnant, I think. And I needed a new challenge after I had Esme, I had great support from treasure chest, and I realized actually I probably had the skills to give back. But also part of my day job, I spend a lot of time looking at lots of different ideas and working out which ones will pay back for the company I work for in society, and I did some really quick maths and read lots of articles and chatted to lots of people, and realized that a very small investment in breastfeeding in the UK financially is really, really worth it. And I thought, well, that's something really good to volunteer.

Emma Pickett  21:35

Tell me about it. Katrina, yeah, just the basic math,Gosh, that you're very methodical thinking about this, aren't you? You don't, we don't waste time deciding what's what's needed. Gosh, you're absolutely right that the time that you give to breastfeeding, it wouldn't take much to transform breastfeeding in the UK, but the every hour you give is so valuable. So you've so you really looked at it quite methodically then. So you're thinking about, what can I do to replace this volunteer time? Yeah, and you, and you looked at breastfeeding peer support, and felt that will be, that will be, you know, worthwhile. And treasure chest felt natural, because that was the organization you worked with, 

Katrina  22:11

and it is the support group in York. I realized I didn't want to go back to work full time. I love my work, but I decided that three days a week was enough as may spend four days a week in nursery, and we decided as a family that her going to nursery for that fourth day meant that I could commit some time to volunteering. And we agreed that as a family, and I don't volunteer every Friday, but it really works well for us. Yeah, so it was a bit of maths, bit about I thought I had the skills, and I'd seen some great peer supporters, and I thought, Oh, if I could do that, that'd be really amazing. So join a great team.

Hilary  22:48

I would also interject here and say that when Kat was coming to in theory to receive support from treasure chest, we would quite often be like, Oh, can you just chat to this person while they're waiting? Oh, let me introduce you to this person while they're waiting, because she's used nipple shields as well, or whatever it was. So we work on a priming.

Emma Pickett  23:10

You can spy them, can't you? You can see the ones that are going to be the potentials, the ones that are just absolutely natural and have those communication skills. So yes, I mean, obviously everyone can train to a certain extent, but there are some people who are just those natural communication natural communicators. And I can, I can tell cat that you're one of those people. So, so by the time you joined treasure chest, Hillary, Hillary was an old hand, by the sounds of it. She'd been around for a while. So I'm guessing your training. I'm guessing the train is constantly updated, like it always is. Let's start with your training. Hilary, what do you what was your peer support training? 

Hilary  23:41

So I trained in the autumn of 2017 so Kester was just about one. He turned one while I was training, and that it was quite a difficult time for me. Probably people who've had a child with additional needs might relate to the fact that when they're tiny, you think that they're ill, and you think they'll go to a hospital, and then they'll get better. And then there comes a stage when you realize that actually this is life now forever, and making that transition from the parent of an ill child to the parent of a disabled child is really, really hard. And it was just like while we were doing that, and I just wanted something really positive and kind of forward looking in my life. So I'd decided not to go back to the job that I'd been doing previously, because his needs were too intense. So I'd got a three hour a week job, and I knew that if I volunteered for treasure chest, then I could bring him along with me so we allow Babes in Arms at the training, and he wasn't a babe in arms, but he couldn't move, so he kind of effectively was even though he was one. So I could bring him to the training, and we did 10 weeks of two hours a week, face to face training. And there was a group of eight of us, I think, and it was. Just lovely to be in that positive space with these lovely people for two hours a week, and to be doing something that was kind of a bit more outward looking, because I think when you have a young child and also a three year old, and you can end up very kind of inward focused, and that's absolutely right for that intense first time, but then there comes a time where you maybe want to be looking a bit more outward and a bit more future focused. So yeah, that's what we did.

Emma Pickett  25:29

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's lovely that you could have him with you during your training. And not every training is an option for Babes in Arms. I mean, these days, some people are training online and doing all the courses online. It's also nice to have that face to face and build up that community as well. Was your training online, Katrina, or were you still face to face?

Katrina  25:47

I had a blended mix. I think we are certainly the first in treasure chest to do it, and I don't know if other groups are doing it as well. So we had over four months, four sessions of three hours each in a group of six that was facilitated by a couple of ibclcs and some peer supporters who were training to be trainers. And that was excellent, and that gave us the practical skills that we needed. And then we also followed the ABM online peer support course, which was very good. It was certainly demanding, possibly more demanding than I'd realized, but I came out feeling really well prepared from both a practical and an academic sense. So I thought it was great. 

Emma Pickett  26:31

Oh, that's good to hear. So, yeah. So the ABM peer supporter course is available to anybody in the UK who meets the criteria. And you learn at your own pace. You know, submit the modules. They get marked by the volunteer team, and at the end of it, you're a peer supporter. And some people go and join an established group, like treasure chest. Some people will be starting their own group. You know, lots of people use the qualification differently around the UK, obviously, alongside the ABM, you've got other options. Breastfeeding network is a very widespread charity that that trains breastfeeding helpers and then goes on to train breastfeeding supporters. And their course is always free, and certain areas in the UK will have commissioned services, and we'll be offering peer support courses, and you can find out about that on the breastfeed Network website. We've also got lelecture league in the UK. You know, we've got other local charities. There's a lot of options. So if someone wants to become a peer supporter, first step is, what's in my area? Who runs the groups in my area? Do they offer training? Do they offer free training? And if the answer is there isn't anybody, next step, I would say, is the ABM. But I'm slightly biased, so I'm guessing Hilary, that you were very familiar with the ABM, because lots of treasure chest people are ABM. 

Hilary  27:44

And actually, I didn't mention that after Kester died and I had a bit more time on my hands, I then did the ABM mother supporter as it was then, course, and in fact, I'm now a trainee breastfeeding counselor. I've just submitted Module One with the ABM as well. So exciting.

Emma Pickett  28:03

Yeah, well, I will see you at module two, because I mark module two, so I will, I will see you then. And look very much. Look forward to mark walking your module. So, yeah, so the ABM breastfeeding Council, of course, is a sort of level up from peer supporters. So we could talk about sort of the levels of breastfeeding support. So in the UK, we've got sort of the peer supporter level, which is called a breastfeeding helper in the breastfeeding network. Then step above that, we've got the breastfeeding counselor course, which is called a breastfeeding supporter in the breastfeeding network. And that course means that someone is able to then go on the national breastfeeding helpline and be a little bit more in depth. It's quite difficult to sort of describe the remit of different roles, isn't it? It's quite hard, because there's so much overlap. I'm going to slightly put you on the spot. Hilary, do you have a sense of how a breastfeeding counselor is different from a peer supporter? 

Hilary  28:52

Yeah. So I think part of the reason why I wanted to train is that sometimes I come across situations as a peer supporter where I think if I had a bit more training, then I could be more help to this family. And so sometimes, as a peer supporter, well, we would always do a lot of signposting to more specialist support if people need it. But I think often when people walk through the door, they don't know the remit, or they don't know how much help they need, necessarily. So as a peer supporter, where we're helping with what we might call normal breastfeeding, so not doing anything kind of the more complex or the more specialist situations, but having said that, in any situation, we can absolutely listen to people's stories and give them emotional support. And that can be really helpful, even if the kind of technical breastfeeding problem is beyond our remit. So I wouldn't want to kind of put off anyone from from coming to a peer support group. But I would also say sometimes you might come and the peer supporters can't do the kind of technical. More stuff that that more complex case might need, but we can always listen and we can always signpost to stuff that's outside our remit as well. 

Emma Pickett  30:09

Yeah. I mean, the way it should work in the UK is that a peer support team should have a very clear system of right? This is the next place you go. If I can't help you, this is the next place, and I'm guessing, knowing, knowing Caroline and knowing people in treasure chest, that you have a really strong this is where you go next, signposting system at treasure chest. And you know, people can go and talk to breastfeeding counselors or ibclcs if they need to, but you're thank you for reminding us that it's it's all about listening. I mean your story about the mum reading to the three year old and listening to your story at the same time, while you while you cried, and you know that that story really shows how good peer supporters are at multitasking, for a start, but also that that quite often it's just having someone listening that someone who understands that breastfeeding matters, yeah, and someone that's just willing to to hear your story.

Hilary  30:57

And I remember really early on in my peer supporting journey. I was working alongside a breastfeeding counselor, and somebody came in, and as we were debriefing afterwards, I said, I don't really know why she came, because I don't think she actually needed any breastfeeding support. And this breastfeeding counselor said, I think she just needed to tell her birth story, and, oh yeah, that's what she needed. And I don't know if she need. She knew that's what she needed, but actually, at the end of the session, she'd been through her birth story in quite a lot of detail and had that really listened to, and that will also have affected her breastfeeding journey. 

Emma Pickett  31:34

Yeah, that's that is absolutely the very familiar story for me. Quite often we're the very first people to ever talk to someone about their birth and they may not have even realized what an impact it had on them, or even realized it was traumatic or, you know, or even as a lovely, positive story. They just want to share it and get that, you know, their sense of yay, and someone else needs to hear my story. Peer supporters, it's such an honor, isn't it, being a peer supporter you really are with people at such an important time of their lives. Katrina, do you remember any sort of early conversations that you had when you first trained? What are some of the people that stick in your mind? I appreciate you can't give us their postcode and full name, but what are some of the people that stick in your mind? 

Katrina  32:11

One of my biggest joys as a peer supporter is just telling people, well done. You're doing a great job. It's hard. You're laying great foundations, and it's the families that have come in, and yes, they've had some practical questions, and we've been able to tweak things a bit or answer a question, but it's just where they've needed somebody to say, look, you're doing a great job. Keep going. Or there's been some families where a supporter or another parent has come along and they've just looked a bit lost, and they don't know what to do. And you're always delighted to welcome them in. And it's talking to them about, what can they do to support that breastfeeding parent? You know, have you thought about making sure that the remote is always in reach? Or have you thought about making that mum about lunch at night? So feeding overnight just becomes a bit easier, and you can help establish supply that way. So I'm still learning a lot of how to deliver sort of practical advice. I think it's quite an art that Hilary does beautifully, but I it's just such a joy to be able to encourage people on and they're they're the families. I remember, we had one family just recently who came back, she sat down on the floor with her two children and just told us how amazing treasure chest had been in her journey and experience. And I played no part in this. I wasn't a part of treasure chest at that point, but just that was such a joy. And you don't always get things back when you get get things back when you volunteer. I didn't in my last role often when I was in custody. But it's such a joy in this role that you do so they are, they're the most memorable ones, I think, where you get to be that that family's cheerleader, yeah? 

Emma Pickett  33:52

And, and, um, I've been being a peer supporter for 1617, odd years now. And actually, the really special ones, the ones that meet you in the street. Yeah. Oh my god, it's you. Look, look who it is this Do you Bobby? This lady helped you breastfeed. And Bobby's like a Fiverr, going, What the hell are you talking about? You know, you know. And those are the, those are the lovely conversations when you really realize that. I mean, I'm not great at remembering names, so quite often I don't remember the person's name, but obviously I'm you meet them at a time in their lives where you've really affected them and and you change them and change their experiences and transformed it. And it's such an honor to be in that place and and there aren't many volunteer roles I think that have that that power, and power makes it sound like I'm sort of some sort of, you know, Spider Man villain. I don't mean power in a bad way. That influence and that that gift of being able to give someone a breastfeeding experience that's positive just away by just listening and supporting and making suggestions and showing them information. It's just so empowering. It's super special that word advice, isn't it? Because when we do our training, it's a bit a bit of a dirty word be horror. 

Katrina  35:00

Just thinking the same thing. 

Emma Pickett  35:01

Yeah, it's so funny to say that because I was thinking she was I was thinking exactly the same thing. I had a picture in my hair, in my head. We're gonna forgive you for you for using the word advice because you were talking about Pat lunches overnight. That's a bit different. Making someone a pat lunch overnight that you can I think you're allowed to advise someone to do that, but for someone who doesn't understand what we're going on about, why is advice a kind of dirty word in the person?

Katrina  35:23

We just want to give families information and evidence so they can go away and make their decisions. We are not living in that family. We do not know their circumstances, their beliefs, their approach, how they will apply that information. So that is their choice and their decision to make, but they are attempting to breastfeed in a world where there isn't often great advice information, sorry, but there is often advice coming from places like Instagram and Facebook so we can be that assured source of information for those families, so that they can be empowered to make that decision. And I think I just use the worst advice for information, which is really, really naughty, but I am well versed in what the difference is.

Emma Pickett  36:10

But you know what? Parents quite often use that word. You know, lots of parents use the word advice, and they they mean it in a very gentle way. I think when we're training to be peer supporters, we're so aware that we're hyper aware that advice implies that we have the power, that we are making a recommendation because we're the expert, and that's not okay as peer supporters. We're not We're not the experts. We're walking alongside somebody. We're, you know, giving them information and helping them to reach their own decision. But it's not easy, because you sometimes meet a mum who's two weeks postpartum and she's she says, You know, I'm triple feeding, and I don't know if I should drop my pumping. Can you just tell me what to do, because, actually, I'm so tired I can't even work out what pumping session to drop next, or, you know what to do about my combined feeding. Can you just tell me, I've literally had people say that to me. What's your experience of that word? Advice? Hilary, do you? How do you find that balance?

Hilary  37:03

I remember my friend who was a peer supporter long before I was saying, we give information and support, and we're very carefully, give information and support, and then at the end, family walks out and says, Thank you so much for your advice. And we're like, No, I didn't give your advice. But they've said, thank you very much. They're happy with what happened, but I think it's all set. I remember when I was training, having this conversation that actually these skills are life skills, and they're good for all of your relationships and so many circumstances in life, and sometimes in context, completely outside the breastfeeding world, I kind of stop and think, actually, what does this conversation need to be? And can I give this person any information? Can I give them any support? And can I, can I hold back from giving advice, even if I really want to? And so I think it's just a life skill which is really valuable that everybody should be trying to do, actually,

Emma Pickett  38:08

yeah, that concept of holding back, I think, is really important. I think in the early days of training, when you first become a peer supporter, you're like, Oh, I know what this is. I know what this is. This sounds like, you know, vasospasm. And I think it's, you know, let me tell you what I think is happening. And actually, sometimes you just need to go, hang on, slow down. Let's listen to five more minutes of her talking about what her experience is and and what the story is. And actually, you know, we might miss something if we, if we jump to, I've got the answer, I've got the answer. And actually, you're just, sometimes, when you're training and breastfeeding, it's, it's just so interesting. It's so fascinating, especially if you're currently breastfeeding while you're going through that, you know, you get you become a complete lactation nerd, which is the, you know, the best kind of nerd. But we just sometimes have to remind ourselves that, hang on, whoa. We don't have to have the answers. It's not about knowing the stuff. It's just about sitting with this person and listening and listening to their story, and lot of it is about not speaking and holding back and letting that conversation happen.

Hilary  39:05

When I started training, I thought I was going to be solving people's breastfeeding problems, and I was like, yeah, here I go. I'm going to solve these breastfeeding problems. And very early on in the training, it was broken gently to us that that's not what we're there for. Actually, the breastfeeding problems might get solved as a as a consequence of the information and support that we're able to give, but we're not just in there to just be problem solvers and to see the family as a problem that needs to be solved.

Emma Pickett  39:36

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it

Emma Pickett  39:41

A little advert just to say that you can buy my four books online. You've Got It In You, a positive guide to breastfeeding is 99p as an e book, and that's aimed at expectant and new parents. The Breast Book published by Pinter Martin is a guide for nine to 14 year olds, and it's a puberty book that puts the emphasis on breasts, which I think is very much needed. And my last two books are about supporting breastfeeding beyond six months and supporting the transition from breastfeeding. For a 10% discount on the last two, go to Jessica Kingsley Press. That's uk.jkp.com and use the code MMPE10, Makes Milk Pickett Emma 10. Thanks. 

Emma Pickett  40:28

I think one of the things that's that's tough is living in a world, well, particularly the UK, where the wider context of breastfeeding support is not great. I mean, you mentioned at the beginning, Katrina, that idea that lots of parents start thinking, Oh, I'll give it a go. You know, it may not work out. If it doesn't work out, that's okay. I'm not going to give myself a hard time. I'm just going to see what happens. You know, in the back of their mind is their sister and their friend and their cousin who didn't make breastfeeding work. And we've got so many people around us who don't meet their breastfeeding goals in the UK, and we and then they realize actually that breastfeeding really matters to them. And they come to the group in week three and and that they do really care. And they realize it is something they really care about. It sounds as though you're somebody who's quite good, Katrina at kind of looking at the macro picture, and you mentioned about looking at, you know, have the contribution that breastfeeding support makes. How do you feel about where we are right now when it comes to sort of breastfeeding support in England particularly,

Katrina  41:24

I think it just makes me really sad, and I'm still at the point where I'll often finish the group and debrief with another peer supporter and say, how has that been allowed to happen? How has that family struggled so they are clearly desperate to do the best for their lovely, tiny person, and they have been so badly let down, and you can't say that to family, because we don't want to destroy their trust in the services that will support them and their child. But I feel really sad about it. We're recording this just before the general election. I'm sure it will go out sometime in the future, but I think I've joked that if you had an MP that stood and said, my big election pledge is that I am going to support breastfeeding in this local area, about 50% of the electorate women will probably, if they've had children, may have considered breastfeeding or giving it a go, and will have probably struggled in some way, not been able to access fabulous support. And it's a bit of a joke, but I'm half serious. If that MP said I'm going to make breastfeeding a priority in my area, I think they'd really grab the attention of some of their electorate. Yeah, that's my view. I'm still at the stage of a frustrated peer supporter at the end of each group. And Hilary, you might tell me that never gets better. 

Emma Pickett  42:44

Yeah, yeah. Cross, I don't know if it does actually, how many years have you been supporting now? Hilary, yeah, you're more and more than one general election at this point. And yeah, I mean, how do you feel about the current state of things.

Hilary  43:01

Yeah, there's so I peer support on zoom as well as face to face, and there's another peer support to our children who are at the same school and they're following morning on the school run. One time I said, are you still I'm still really angry about how that person was let down? And she was like, I was angry. So we had like a big kind of growl at one another on the school one the following day. Because, you know, people come to us to pick up the pieces that shouldn't have been dropped in the first place. And it's but I think what actually encourages me about being a peer supporter is that I find both with treasure chest and with the ABM and the kind of broader movement is there are people who really see that big picture and are campaigning for improvements in maternity services, but are also helping those individual families and kind of getting that balance between I'm going to do something positive for four families This Week in my local area, but also I'm not losing sight of that bigger picture, which is about formula. Marketing is about investment in maternity services and health visiting, and it's about culture change, like holding those two things together, I think is really important, 

Emma Pickett  44:15

yeah, yeah. Now that's a good way of looking at it. I think for me, I mean, I've not lost the angry. It's just impossible to not have be angry when you and you have to put the angry out of your head when you're in a group or you're working that individual family. Very occasionally, I might chat to somebody I'm working in London. So I sometimes bump into people who work in media or work for, you know, big sort of journalists and these and they sort of say, you know, I'm thinking maybe I might write about this at the end, because I realized, actually, now I look at breastfeeding in the UK that we really have a problem, don't we? In those conversations, I'll go actually now you talk about it. Yes, let me all the stuff suddenly comes pouring out, but I managed to cold it in most of the time when I'm talking to families. But you're absolutely right. Peer supporters are often right. Repairing when they really shouldn't be. They really should not have to be repairing. And they often are meeting someone who's had such a grim time in hospital and has met somebody who gave them incorrect information, who was poorly trained, who was incredibly stretched. I have a cousin who's a midwife who talks about, you know, being on the ward with many, many people who've had C sections, and how impossible it is to give everybody breastfeeding support. It's just not doable. I think one of the things that I've come to realize is that you can't be angry with an individual member of the health profession who's given that incorrect advice. It is not the fault of ex GP or ex midwife. It's there's a system that has failed them. So you must make sure that if you feel, find yourself being but, you know, blaming an individual, that you take a step back and realize that that was not the fault of that individual, that that certainly helps me, and sometimes that means I'm writing letters to, you know, Health Visiting management or a hospital, or, you know, a local area for GP practice. But it's not Bob the GP who's evil. Bob the GP is a victim of a system, including a medical school, which didn't value breastfeeding during their training as well. How do you kind of Katrina? How do you stop yourself coming out with clenched fists when you've had a breastfeeding support session? 

Katrina  46:18

We always debrief at the end of a session, and that's that's really good. How else do I do it? I think life is so busy, you just return sometimes, and you just leap back into things. I think also, there's ways to make some positive change that aren't necessarily directly related to peer, supporting or treasure chest. I put a post on LinkedIn just a couple of days ago, I finally went on my first overnight work trip. Work Travel is quite a big bit of my job, and I've only just been able to return to it at six months. It was highly successful. It's a wonderful, wonderful feeling to be able to go away for work again. But I put a post on LinkedIn that said, you know, if we've worked together over the last six months, I've been back at work, and you have quietly helped organize a meeting in Yorkshire so I don't have to travel. You've made a really big health benefit for me and my family. Thanks. And if I can return the favor, let me know. And it felt like really good way just to talk about and normalize breastfeeding, and say, even if you don't have a baby and you're not breastfeeding, you're still contributing. Have a think about it next time a colleague comes back to work from maternity leave, and what could you do? So it's kind of like redressing the balance that makes me feel a bit better. And I'm surprised how, yeah, supportive people who you perhaps wouldn't think would be actually are. 

Emma Pickett  47:38

Yeah, I like the idea of that LinkedIn post, I think quite often when people do return to work, especially if they've returned to work after 812, months, they kind of keep their breastfeeding, sort of under, under a veil. And it's not necessarily immediately obvious, and colleagues don't necessarily know about it. So thank you for posting that. I think that's that ripple effect is so important. And you know, that's what peer support is. Often it is about those ripples and and then you get someone else to train, and the next cat comes along, and you get her to train, and you know that ripple effect is so incredibly valuable. Do you what do you see yourself doing in the future, cat? Are you going to be doing any more training, or are you happy with the peer support role? Can we persuade you to become a breastplate counselor go on the helpline? What's your what's your next plan?

Katrina  48:22

So you were talking about this as a training supervision session, and you know, at the moment, I just enjoy doing this. There's a lot of other asks in life. There's a lot of other people to support in various things. And work is demanding at the moment. This is great. Who knows what in the future, but I'm still learning an awful lot from the more experienced peer supporters, and that feels like a good place to be in at the moment, to be enjoying and learning. 

Emma Pickett  48:50

Yeah, and actually, I just want to flag up that, I didn't want to imply that peer supporters should always want to carry on training. I don't think that's the case. We absolutely need peer supporters to be peer supporters. If every peer supporter kept on going and became a breastfeeding counselor in ibclc, we're just going to need a whole bunch more more peer supporters, and we need the peer supporters who are experienced as well. Do you think there's a time where you if you haven't breastfed for 20 years, you shouldn't be a peer supporter? Do you think it has to be a recent experience? I'm just a bit curious as to whether you think someone who's a peer supporter needs to have had recent breastfeeding experience to be effective. Either of you. 

Katrina  49:27

Hilary, we had somebody in our training group, didn't we? Yeah, I don't know if we can how much we can talk about her and her experience. I don't want to tell somebody a story who doesn't know that their story would be told,

Hilary  49:41

but I think we have a couple of peer supporters in Treasure Chest who are grandparents, or nearly grandparents, you know, that kind of generation. And I think what they offer to peer support is probably not the same as somebody who has a very young child, but what they offer is really value. Valuable. Sometimes people, people kind of actually want a bit of a granny figure that, and that can be valuable. So when we say, you know, when we're recruiting people, it's just you need to have breastfed for six months, and that's at some point, that's what it is. And actually, when I, when I trained, we were all sort of the same generation, but there were two or three people who weren't actually currently breastfeeding when they trained. 

Emma Pickett  50:27

Yeah. I think that, yeah. I think that grandparent comment, I think, is really valuable, because sometimes actually the grandparents need support. I mean, sometimes we get grannies that come to our groups, and if there was another granny in that room, how incredibly powerful that could be. I know there are some organizations that have dads that train and partners that also support other partners. You mentioned Katrina some of the conversations you're having about how to support somebody breastfeeding, that, for me, really highlights how you need to have groups where partners can be present, and that those is very much a team effort.

Hilary  50:59

So I wrote down a list like, don't forget to say these things at some point in the podcast. And one of them was, if you're thinking of coming to a peer support group, then, if at all possible, come with someone from your support team, because as as Katrina said, it's great to be able to talk to those people about how they can support you. So whether it's a partner or I've had people come with their sister, with their mum, with their friend, especially, it's great if somebody's had a C section and their friend can give them a lift so that they can come quite early and not have to worry about driving or whether they need to get a taxi or whatever, and actually having that support team listening in to what you're saying. So they might be more likely to remember, you know, what did they say about, oh yes, you know, the way that you might want to sit, or things like that. So absolutely and at treasure chest, and any member of your support team is very welcome, and we would love to see them. And yeah, they're really welcome. 

Emma Pickett  51:59

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the support of being a camera person. So when you're especially if you have doing a really fine tuning on positioning attachment, it can be super helpful to have someone videoing, and I quite like doing it. So we talk through the positioning together while someone is videoing, and then having that second pair of ears, especially when you're at a time of your life where you may be quite sleep deprived and you may not be absorbing all the information, it can be super helpful. 

Katrina  52:24

I was chatting to a family recently, and mum and dad came along, and mum was clearly exhausted, like she had been trying so hard, and dad, perhaps, on that morning and had a few extra hours of sleep, he was he was doing a great job of supporting but you could see that he could take the information on board. Was listening to me, and was gently feeding it back to her in a slightly different way, and I was picking up on that and then modifying how I was talking about things, because he clearly knew how that information was going to land with his partner. And he also did some videoing, and he clearly went away with a lot of information. A lot of this is how I can support my partner. She was still really struggling, because it had been a, clearly a hard night. But yeah, as a team, it was wonderful to see. And I, yeah, I hope we'll see them again. 

Emma Pickett  53:19

Yeah, that sounds lovely that, yeah. The I have those partners in my mind as well, the the partners who just, just absolutely are making it happen and and supporting. And, gosh, there was a dad just this afternoon who, who was it was exhausted, because, actually, he'd done a lot of lot of the care the night before. But I've met him a few times now, and he's obviously someone who's just making such a difference. And I guess, you know, I come back to just what an honor it is to be a peer supporter and what a very special experience is. And I don't want people to think, you know, when I train, oh my god, I can only I've got to commit five years to this. Not everyone does commit five years. Some people are just peer supporters for the length of their maternity leave. Not everyone puts their child in nursery for one day a week so they can be a peer supporter. I mean, there's lots of different ways of doing it, and some people will commit different amounts of time. But if someone's thinking about being a peer supporter after listening to this, what would you want them to take away? Hilary, go for it.

Hilary  54:13

Find out some more about it. What there is nearby? And I think we need lots, we need lots of people to be peer supporters. We also really need a diversity of people to be peer supporters, so diversity of experience and background and kind of the way they think, like you can hear that Katrina's so analytical, and you might pick up that I'm not. It's great to have those different kind of ways of thinking that can really complement one another and offer different things to families. And I think it has been good for us in treasure chest to with the last lot of training, we could offer this kind of blended model. So it wasn't that people needed to commit to being in the same time and place for two hours. Every week for nearly three months, but actually it was kind of once a month, and then this online training as well. So I hope that will encourage more people and people in different situations to be able to do it. And I was going to mention as well that I support on Zoom, and we don't get as many people to our zoom groups as we do to face to face, but I still think it's really valuable to be able to offer that both in terms of people who need support, who maybe can't get out, especially in the really early days postpartum, or if they're a bit out of the city and travel is difficult, but also, I think it helps more of a diversity of volunteers to be able to offer their time, because you can, you can do it from home. You don't need to travel. And, yeah, that's what we need. 

Emma Pickett  55:48

Yeah, I mean that word diversity is can mean lots of different things. Can't it, but everybody who runs peer support in the UK has to commit to putting a lot of effort into diversifying the peer supporter population. And actually, one of the great things about Zoom is, you know someone who's disabled, someone who's disabled or has mobility issues or, you know, has financial restrictions to being able to travel to the groups. That's that I'm really glad that Zoom has stuck after the pandemic. It has in a Haringey as well. We've still got our zoom groups. You know, culturally, some people don't want to leave the home for an X amount of time after birth. So it's so important that we've got those different opportunities. And I think anyone who's running a peer support group, if you look around and everybody's white and middle class, you've got work to do, because every group needs to represent everybody in that local population and and we need to have the 18 year olds who are the peer supporters. And we need to have, you know, not just the grannies. We've got to look at age, we've got to look at ethnic background, we've got to look at making sure we've got, you know, gay and lesbian representation. And it's just, you know, I know that you guys all know this, and I was preaching to the converted, but if someone's listening to this and they're running a peer support organization, we that that responsibility never ends of making sure that that your organization is representative and hearing all voices, and if you don't have enough people who aren't white, middle class, you go off and you find out why, why aren't they coming to train with you? What's going on in your local area? That means that there's a barrier that they don't feel welcome to come and train with you. Peer. Supporting is such a responsibility, and everyone has the right to be supported by someone who reminds them of themselves or connects with them. It should be someone who comes from their own community. So yeah. Thank you very much, both of you for joining me today. Really honored that you, that you came and shared your story. And treasure chest is such a lovely organization. So if anyone's in the area of York, you're super lucky to be able to volunteer with treasure chest. Not every area has someone exactly like treasure chest, but you will find your own treasure chests out there. They might be called something else quite often with the word milk in the title, or milky this, or something this. But you will, you'll find your own organizations out there. And if you haven't got one, you can make your own. One day somebody started treasure chest York, and one day somebody started the breastfeeding network. And you can, you can, you know, you can start your own organization if there's nothing local to you, but there's not much more special than being a breastfeeding peer supporter. Is there anything we haven't said on your lovely list, Hilary, or anything in your mental list, Katrina, that you want to make sure we we definitely cover? 

Hilary  58:17

The only thing left on my list is I wanted to say to people that come to or access support, either on Facebook or on Zoom or in person, you're really welcome to come antenatally, just so you and that means you just find out, like which bus stop to go to or where to park when you haven't got a baby screaming in the back, which can be great. And we'd love to see people antenatally. And we would love to see you if you have a little niggle, rather than, like, waiting for two weeks until it's turned into a crisis. So there is no niggle so small that that we won't talk about it. We would love to do that. And we would also love to talk to you about stopping breastfeeding when it's the right time for you as well. So we're not just about starting and establishing breastfeeding. We're also trained and really happy to talk to you about stopping breastfeeding as well. 

Emma Pickett  59:09

That warms the cockles of my winning support heart to hear you say that. Hilary, thank you for mentioning that. Yeah, I love the shout out about antenatal support. Actually, it's really nice just to go and sit in a group and see other people breastfeeding and see what people are going through, and have a sense of what does it look like when someone's holding a little baby. Many of us haven't seen that until we get off ourselves. And I'd also give a shout out for the completely niggle less people, the people where nothing is going wrong at all, and they just fancy breastfeeding in front of someone else. I call it having a sort of breastfeeding mot, just, sort of just, just, how does it look? II mean, what's happening? You might have a question that came up that you didn't even know you had. You don't have to have a problem to go to a breastfeeding peer support group. Is there anything you want? Do you want to add Katrina? 

Katrina  59:53

that we've missed those families that come just because they would like to get out the house, have a change of scenery, or the group I go? And support hat has a lovely community cafe, so that's great that those families realize what they bring to other families in the room. If they're sitting there, you know, with maybe a three or a six or 12 month old or a toddler or a much older child feeding contentedly, can listen into a conversation and occasionally just naturally join in with it. They are offering so much to that community without having to train and volunteer as a peer supporter. Because for not everybody, it's not possible at that time in their lives, or they don't have the capacity or don't want to, but you can still be an amazing support by just coming to see us at a group, because you normalize everything, and you show Oh, in a couple of months, that could be me. That's, and that's lovely to see as well. 

Emma Pickett  1:00:47

Yeah, that's, that's a very good reminder. Yeah, you don't have to train to be able to be a important part of a group. And it's about community, isn't it? We're reproducing that village that many of us don't have anymore. And you're, you are the villagers. Hooray for the villagers. Okay, thank you so much, both of you. I really appreciate your time today, and I look forward to hearing what happens with the church Chester, so it sounds like you can become a charity. You applying to be a charity? Is that the plan? Okay, cool, cool. I look very much. Look forward to seeing what you get up to next. Thanks very much, both of you for your time today. Really appreciated. 

Hilary  1:01:20

Thanks. 

Katrina  1:01:21

Thank you. 

Emma Pickett  1:01:26

Thank you for joining me today. You can find me on Instagram at Emma Pickett IBCLC and on Twitter @MakesMilk. It would be lovely if you subscribed because that helps other people to know I exist. And leaving a review would be great as well. Get in touch if you would like to join me to share your feeding or weaning journey, or if you have any ideas for topics to include in the podcast. This podcast is produced by the lovely Emily Crosby Media.