Infant feeding

The Department of Health (DH) and WHO recommend that babies have nothing other than breastmilk for the first six months of life and then continue breastfeeding with complementary foods for up to two years and beyond. Breastfeeding improves the health of mothers and babies and helps to nurture a close and responsive relationship between mother and child. Your breastmilk will adapt to the changing needs of your developing baby.

Helpful videos

Good attachment will help a baby get more milk and make breastfeeding more comfortable. This video shows why good attachment is so important to breastfeeding success and what a mother can do to deeply attach her baby to her breast.

Nancy Mohrbacher, Lactation Consultant discusses and demonstrates ‘laid back’, ‘natural’ breastfeeding positions to support breastfeeding in the early days.

This video discusses guides mothers through how to hand express, and talks about the times when hand expression might be useful.

Colostrum harvesting

Colostrum harvesting is the process of expressing, collecting and storing your colostrum in late pregnancy to feed to your baby after birth if needed. For more information please watch this video and speak with your midwife.

Celebrating Breastfeeding Week 1st – 7th June 2020

The theme for this year’s Celebrating Breastfeeding Week is ‘Promoting and supporting breastfeeding during the Covid-19 pandemic’.

The Infant Feeding Team at NDHT has been working hard to adapt its resources and services to meet the current challenges, and as part of celebrating breastfeeding week, we are launching our breastfeeding workshop as an online recording.

If you're planning to bottle feed with expressed breast milk or infant formula, the NHS website has some handy tips that will help you feed your baby and keep them safe and healthy.

If you decide to use infant formula, first infant formula (first milk) should always be the first formula you give your baby. You can use it throughout the first year.

The Infant Feeding Team at North have been working hard to adapt its resources and services to meet the current challenges, and as part of celebrating breastfeeding week, we are launching our breastfeeding workshop as an online recording.

We now have a dedicated Infant Feeding Clinic 3 days a week.

You can be referred into our Infant Feeding Clinic by your midwife to receive focused feeding support via video or telephone call.

Facebook support group

We also have a new Facebook group set up to provide you with up to date, evidence based information and resources to help you on your feeding journey, come join us:

Infant Feeding Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust

• Exeter Babies
• https://www.devon.gov.uk/positive-about-breastfeeding/support-groups/ 

We produce a wide range of leaflets which provide information about our services and about the treatment you might receive in our clinics or during your stay in hospital. 

We also produce these in different formats including large print, please contact the department you are visiting for more information.

Find out more

We have a wide range of videos which provide information about our services and about the treatment you might receive in our clinics or during your stay in hospital. 

Find out more