Moray families join global Big Latch On
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MORAY mums and babies gathered together to be part of a Global Big "latch on" event in Elgin as part of World Breastfeeding Week.
Global latch ons take place at registered locations around the world and see communities gathering together to celebrate, promote and support breastfeeding.
Each event provides a count of the number of mums and feeding babies in attendance to provide a global snapshot.
Around 70 mums, dads and children turned out to support the Moray event, which was held at Elgin Library's community room last week and organised by mum Helen Nasrat with support from local Health Improvement and Infant Feeding Teams. An indoor picnic, with refreshments provided by Starbucks and Tesco, was enjoyed.
Helen said: "We weren't expecting such a high turnout. The support in Moray is really good. It's about meeting other mums to chat and socialise – about everything, not just breastfeeding."
The Breastfeeding Reassurance and Awareness Group (BRAG) is available for all mums in Moray and is based in Elgin. It is a support and information group with links from other breastfeeding groups across Moray in Forres, Keith, Buckie and Banff. You can visit nhsgrampian.org/breastfeeding or www.parentclub.scot for more information on breastfeeding and local groups.
Vicky Ross, a healthcare support worker in the Infant Feeding Team at Dr Gray's Hospital, was on hand at the Elgin event.
Vicky said: “The Infant Feeding Team Moray provides a full support service for a wide variety of infant feeding aspects including breastfeeding, expressing and mixed feeding. This support is there for however long women wish to continue to provide breast milk for their child.
"The BRAG groups are a nice setting for mums to ask questions and get support. They help build new mums' confidence in dealing with the issues that can arise.
"Breastfeeding can be quite daunting – especially for a first-time mum going out in public. It can also take some time to get breastfeeding established between mum and baby – and we're there to help however we can."
Mum-of-two Lisa Bayliss said: "I made lots of good friends through BRAG. I attended the groups with my last child and it's such a good thing to do."
New mum Hollie Donaghy added: "I found that you don't see that many people breastfeeding in this area – so I was a bit unsure about it. Also, some people advised me not to breastfeed. I wanted to find out more so started coming along to the groups."
And Courtney Flaws said: "I don't know how much longer I'll be able to breastfeed as my child is one and a half, so I wanted to come along while I still can.
"I've been in a couple of breastfeeding groups and they've been very helpful to me."
Moray Infant Feeding Team can be contacted on 01343 567531. There is also a Breastfeeding Support Moray Facebook page, which was set up by NHS Grampian trained peer supporters from the local area.
