Preparing to breast feed
Antenatal education
There are both face to face and online antenatal classes within Bedford and Luton which include information to help prepare you for those first few days and weeks of breastfeeding your baby and how to continue with confidence. Please see the links below:
Antenatal classes – Bump, Birth and Baby Stuff | Bedford Local Offer
Parenting and Family Relationship – Flying Start Luton
La Leche League provide a FREE practical and interactive online course to learn about first days and weeks of breastfeeding your baby and how to continue with confidence with the help from your support partner and all the resources from La Leche League GB and beyond. Further information.
Expressing milk before your baby’s birth
Please visit our ‘Hand expressing and storing colostrum in pregnancy‘ page for information about antenatal expression of colostrum. This is strongly recommended for those with diabetes, expecting twins or triplets, or anticipating health issues, however many families find it extremely helpful in avoiding early supplementation with formula / bottles and successfully establishing breastfeeding. Please visit our website page about the effects of giving formula milk to a breastfeeding baby.
If you do not see any colostrum, don’t worry! It can take time to start to be able to express and the amount of breast milk you get will usually be very small to start with (often just a few drops). If you are unable to express colostrum antenatally, this is not an indication of your milk supply once baby is born.
Other resources
There are lots of useful resources on our breastfeeding and useful links and information pages (we would encourage you to watch the videos about latching before baby arrives). You may also find the pages below helpful for information about breastfeeding in the early days.
The Unicef UK Baby Friendly Initiative