The ‘A-Team’ for breastfeeding

There have been seven nominations in Cavan across multiple categories for this year’s Friends of Breastfeeding Awards, to take place on March 29.

The awards recognise excellence in breastfeeding promotion, advocacy, and support across both professional and voluntary sectors.

One such group nominated for this year’s awards is the Virginia Breastfeeding Peer Support Group, with six other Cavan individuals also in the running to bring home glassware to the Breffni county.

The Anglo-Celt had the pleasure of meeting some of these women at a day to celebrate the achievement last Wednesday (March 12) at the Virginia Breastfeeding Peer Support Group. New mothers and those who have been attending the group for years, along with HSE workers, flocked into the Church of Ireland hall in Virginia.

All sat around in a circle, chatted, breastfed their babies, shared food and sought advice from the professionals milling around, with older toddlers also taking advantage of the mountain of toys in the room.

The group will be up and running for 10 years this November, and has provided support to hundreds of mothers since its inception.

Supporting mothers

Public Health Nurse and Lactation Consultant for Cavan and Monaghan, Mairead McCahill, founded the group and is one such woman up for an award in the Lactation Consultant of the Year category, along with Clinical Midwife Specialist Lactation Consultant, Aileen Doyle.

“It was just fabulous,” she said of the nomination, adding that she won the award two years ago.

“Women recognise that they need support and they get support and I’m really, really privileged to be able to give that support,” she outlined.

In her work, Mairead gets a great sense of pride when she sees a mother “blossom” and “feed their baby the way they want to feed them”.

She visits groups like the Virginia one across Cavan and Monaghan and also provides one-to-one support for mothers and their partners, while she is also involved at national level with helping to get “policies and procedures in place”.

“I can show them what will work and then they can feel it working and, when they see the baby is getting good feeds, then they have the confidence. It’s just having the confidence because we’re not in a society where we see breastfeeding all the time, we only see bottle feeding so I’m helping them to identify when the baby is transferring milk.”

A “big thing” for Mairead is matrescence.

“We talk about adolescence with teenagers but with matrescence, when a baby is born, you have the birth of the mother and you’ve the birth of the father and for women we’re very, very good at everything we do but we don’t look after the mother enough.

“If you look after the mother, then the mother will look after the baby and everybody else’s job around the mother is to look after the mother.”

According to Mairead, there is no set time when a mother should stop breast feeding their baby.

“Sometimes children are weaning naturally and it could be between toddlerhood or up until two years but some are going on to four and five.

“Breasts unfortunately are sexualised so some people will think that that’s wrong but milk teeth are called milk teeth for a reason and they start falling in children anything from six to seven or eight years,” she said, adding that “weaning can go on up until that time”.

The mother of three found her own breastfeeding journeys “tough”.

“I know how difficult it is for mums and dads.”

A sense of community

For Peer Support Leader, Lorna Fitzpatrick Gaule, the Virginia group had just started up when she had her first born. She has been nominated for Volunteer of the Year for her work within the group.

“If you don’t have a support network around you and you’re not from the area, it can be very isolating having a new baby,” she said.

“When I came here, I had such a warm welcome, a sense of community, I didn’t feel like I was by myself.

“I don’t feel lucky that I was able to breastfeed, I feel so lucky that I had the correct supports to enable me to do so.”

With other mothers going back to work, Lorna decided to get involved to ensure the group and service remained and thrived.

“I volunteered straight away, I didn’t know anything about breastfeeding because I had only just had my first but I volunteered and said I’ll help out.

“I’ve literally met hundreds and hundreds of mothers throughout those nine and a half years,” she said.

Lorna also sits on the regional infant feeding committee representing peer support leaders.

“It’s great because you have an input and get feedback from the service users.”

The group also hosts guest speakers from time to time to help mothers access information from the likes of paediatric dieticians, speech and language therapists, as well as receiving peer support.

“It’s only when you get nominated and shortlisted for things like this that you stop and think, oh wow we are doing something that’s a huge support to mothers. You kind of forget that sometimes.

“Our ethos here is always to provide a breastfeeding solution for a breastfeeding issue or problem.

“We just want to create a warm welcome and a safe space for them to come in.

“Breastfeeding is a natural thing but it sometimes doesn’t come naturally, it’s a skill that has to be learned by both mother and baby so we create a safe space for mothers to practice that skill of breastfeeding.”

Joyous

Annette Freeman has been nominated in the Breastfeeding Friendly Health Care Provider of the Year category along with Cavan Osteopath Lorraine Bennett.

Annette said she felt “overwhelmed” and “humbled” at the nomination for her work as Manager of the Special Care Baby Unit at Cavan General Hospital and Clinical Midwife Manager.

“I meet them [mothers] when they’ve had an early delivery, so it’s a little bit traumatic and emotional.

“There’s nothing more joyous than to see mums that want to breastfeed even though their journey started in special care, to actually see them going home breastfeeding, that gives me great pleasure.”

Privileged

Midwife Sarah Wilson is honoured to have been nominated in the Midwife and Public Health Nurse Category. She has been working in Cavan General Hospital for the past five years, a job she described as “amazing” and “busy.”

“There’s no two days the same,” she added.

“We’re privileged that we get to care for these women and babies and families.”

Inside the hall mothers and babies are milling around and chatting, while the specialists are having one-to-one conversations with mothers. Each mum is there for a reason, but most enjoy the support the group provides.

An amazing support

Mother of four Niamh Bradley McBreen moved back to Cavan after living in Dublin with her husband, just two weeks before her first child was born six years ago. Not really knowing anybody from the area, Lorna told her to “pop in” to the support group.

“I did pop in and it was the best thing ever.

“It was just so lovely to come in to a group of mums all trying to navigate things.

“The group has just been the most amazing support and Lorna has been unreal, as has Mairead she’s just been a fountain of knowledge.

“I breast fed all my kids. I would never have been able to do it without the likes of Lorna or Mairead or Lorraine down in Cavan.”

“They’re just like the A-Team when it comes to helping you on your breastfeeding journey.”

Making connections

Aisling Makharita has been attending the group in Virginia since August 2023, and has come “almost every week” since her daughter Evelyn was born.

For her, the group provided a space to meet people who were “doing the same things” as her.

“Just somewhere to come out every week and know that there was going to be something to do.

“It’s a really good excuse to get out of the house when you have a small baby.”

“The mom social is good, you can always talk about what’s going on with your baby,” she said.

Damaris Algarve started coming to the group with her baby Noah a year and a half ago. She started coming to form a “connection” with other mothers and to “make friends”.

“I found it very helpful with Mairead because I was in pain when I was breastfeeding, after that I found it much better.

“It was great coming to the group and I met a lot of mums and exchanged experiences.”

The group meets every Wednesday in the Church or Ireland hall in Virginia from 10am to 11.30am, with the door always open to new mothers.