I was very lucky when I was first pregnant I stumbled upon a parenting website with an enormous forum, and theres some fantastic advice on that for breastfeeding and I was reading that maybe the last four or six weeks before the baby was due, and that gave me a good idea of some of the things that could go wrong and some of the things that might happen during the early days.

So you just happened to put something in Google and come up with that site?

It was when I was first pregnant, so I started posting on the, the forum they have a thread for each month that the babies are due in and I, I started posting on that, I think I was like ten weeks pregnant, so everybody all followed each other through the, through the processes but theres a whole wealth of other information on that site as well.

And you could share your experiences with other women’

[Mm-hm].

‘and vice versa?

Yeah.

Was there any technical expertise or help on that?

Well that’s one thing that I felt that I really needed to be careful of because it was just people posting, you know, everyday people, some who thought they knew it but didn’t, but there are, now that I’ve increased my knowledge about breastfeeding I know that there are some people on there who talk brilliant advice, really good sense, and very sensible stuff, but, theres some rubbish on it as well, so it’s knowing how to sift through it and take, take what you want from it.

So how do you do that?

Well I just did it by reading and reading as much as I could, mostly on the internet but reading websites from breastfeeding support groups who, you know, are, know what they’re talking about, like La Leche League and theres another website called KellyMom.com, I don’t know if you.

Is that a Scottish website?

No I think it’s American.

Called?

KellyMom.com, and once you start looking at these websites you see these recurring themes coming up and coming up and coming up, you go well if all these breastfeeding experts are saying that this must be how it is, so from that I could then sift through the, the posts on the forum and, and work out what was what.

Okay so that was one criteria for reputability?

[Mm-hm].

Anything else that you look at in a website?

I just had to bear in mind that if people were posting what they said they had experienced that’s what they’ve experienced you can’t, you can’t argue with that at all, but it’s when people are stating facts, just to me if something didn’t sound right I would go off myself, and would read up on one of these other websites, that I knew was giving the correct information.

While I was pregnant, there was a little bit of help from the antenatal classes it was really a series of, I just did four classes, so they did a little section on breastfeeding and I think they put, I think they showed us a video clip of someone. Again I think I just, seeing the video clip I think I just assumed that it would come very, very naturally and didn’t really, as they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t, they didn’t really highlight the fact that a lot of people get soreness and that it’s to do with the position and, again until you’ve actually experienced it you don’t really sort of fully comprehend what they’re talking about. And also I think in the ante-natal classes they were so focused towards the actual birth and I think my mind is probably more thinking about labour and the hospital and that side of things that, yeah I, I didn’t really, probably give enough thought to breastfeeding.

What did you know about breastfeeding at that stage?

It was just a, a theory in a book to be quite honest, I hadn’t really given it much thought we were encouraged when I went to the antenatal classes to breastfeed. Oh I went to one of the workshops on breastfeeding as well where, we had a doll and we mimicked the doll breastfeeding and it was nothing like I expected it to be because I mean a doll and a natural baby are very different. But it was quite good because they did things, tried to give examples like, the sucking motion by using balloons and things like that and also told us about breast pumps. So it was a lot more real than the theory but I was probably still only around five months pregnant with [daughter] so it didn’t seem, it’s , it, thank you, it still didn’t seem as if it still didn’t seem as if, it was that real to me until she was born.

Who ran those antenatal classes?

I think they were run by midwives’

Right, right.

‘but I can’t remember their names.

You don’t know whether it was an NHS Trust or the hospital or?

It was the hospital.

The hospital.

It was the hospital yeah, and they also, they also had specialist midwives who came in to do the breastfeeding classes.

Right, right.

In fact one woman she said that, I mean her daughter was nine, and she said if she could she wouldve continued to breastfeed because she loved it so much, she was, they were basically people who were very, very enthusiastic about breastfeeding and that enthusiasm carries through to all of the people there, it was a really big class as well they were around, it must have been seventy or eighty of us, it was a big class.

I think the, before I had my baby, I went to the, I think they’re called parenting skills classes at the hospital. And I went to the one on breastfeeding. And actually what was quite interesting at that point is that there was the implication that you would kind of, as soon as you had that baby, you would be gushing buckets of milk. And it was sort of, you know, you wouldn’t be able to hold back the tide. And it was, and the focus of these parenting classes were more around, Should you breastfeed or not? rather than, Actually, this is how you do it. So yeah, but the implication was that milk would just come and you’ve actually almost got to stop it, you know. There was sort of, advise you on nipple pads and, actually, if you need to express because theres too much. And so I think in my head I was expecting there to be loads – of milk. And then in the hospital there just didn’t seem to be anything coming out.

So we were talking about when you were pregnant and how much you knew, did you go to ante-natal classes?

I came from Pakistan when I was pregnant I was very new here, and I couldn't go, I had got a leaflet and I couldn't understand, I couldn't see the street the names and I was very like I can see the I hadn't confidence to go outside, that’s why I didn't go.

Did you speak English at that stage?

Yeah I learned from Pakistan but here accent is very different from Pakistan, very different and I've taken two years to learn here the accent, talking with people, my husband, my in-laws, brothers and sisters.

Right, so you didn't attend antenatal classes did you do any reading?

Yeah reading, yeah, books my health visitor gave me a lot of books, leaflets, I been reading all every week, like after two or three days when I was pregnant.

Right and what language were those in?

English.

In English? You were reading in English?

Yeah.

Did you get any material in your own languages?

Materials? No, I had a no need of it.

You didn't need it?

No.

Do you know if there are breastfeeding information leaflets and things available in Urdu for example?

Yeah.

or Parsi?

I know, I know but, I wanted to read in English yeah, 'cause I.

Good practice?

Yeah good practice I wanted to read in English and 'cause for knowledge or for my child or for, what d'you call it? For in, living in England, 'cause heres everywhere English. You can read the books, a lot of books they are very helpful, very helpful, every experience I had I read before doing my experience, I read in books and leaflets and I been watching videos.

Oh yeah, yeah?

Yeah I've got by my health visitor about breastfeeding and that was, that’s why I was very excited, I couldn't wait to give my breastfeed to my son.

So you were looking forward to it you were very excited about it?

Yeah, very much, yeah very excited, I was very excited.

Yeah and it’s lived up to expectations?

Yeah.

You've enjoyed it?

Yeah.

In, how you have the Holy Bible weve got a Koran and it says in the Koran, because breastfeeding is natural, Mum has all the antibodies, all the vitamins, all the protection that you can give to a baby especially when the baby just come, come to this world where there so many illnesses and so many disease and so many bacteria’s about. So baby to suck on you and, for baby to take that benefit from you is wonderful thing. It’s says specifically in our Koran to breastfeed your child for up to two years.

Mm-hm.

Which is very, very important, because in our religion we for, were so, not were supposed to it’s, it’s a guidance of what to do in life, how to go about it and it does say that to breastfeed, to suckle your, suckle your baby for two years. If you can’t do that that’s absolutely fine, but we recommend you do, it’s very, very highly recommended. And obviously when I was pregnant I had so many books, I borrowed so many books from my colleagues, from the library, I got on the internet, breastfeeding networking to do a lot of research.

What language were those books and things in?

Oh English, English and I read Bengali literature also but which I’ve read them to also myself but I think.

Was there much available in Bengali?

There is, there is especially if you look at it in Islamic, Islamically because Is-Islam says to breastfeed your child that’s why he has got be, there, I’ve got a this book it’s called the ‘Ideal Muslim Woman’ and it says there like step by step ante-natally, post-natally, breastfeeding, make sure you have a good diet, step by step everything and it says how important it is benefit for the baby and for the mother.

I don’t know because he was quite a, because I got quite a lot of help actually in my antenatal class from, and not just from the, the lady that run it but from the mothers who was breastfeeding at, you know, for their other children that they’d breastfed, so I was quite fortunate in that respect, the fact that I’d got quite lot of advice beforehand and also I’ve read a lot of the breastfeeding leaflets that you get given. In fact to a point where before he was born I was dreaming I was breastfeeding, and only on the last sort of few dreams of me breastfeeding I would actually leak in, in the bed, and I would, my breasts would leak whilst I was dreaming [laughs] so I found that really quite odd, but it was like my brain was, obviously taking in all the leaflets that I’d read and all the information I’d been given and was processing into like a training programme in my mind, it was really quite special [laughs]. So I was quite fortunate in that respect, because I would literally wake up thinking ‘have I had my baby? No, no it’s still inside me and my pillow, my bed would be all wet where my boobs were been [laughs], so they would just leak just to reinforce the fact that it could happen [laughs] I think [laughs], quite strange.

Footnote For discussion about leaking see ‘Talking about’ Getting started with breastfeeding Early experiences’ Sensation of breastfeeding.