Support from our infant feeding practitioners
The infant feeding practitioners (IFPs) work alongside the health visitors to support you with making an informed choice about how to feed your baby. They provide calls and home visits up until your baby turns 14 days old. The team can support with exclusive breastfeeding, combination feeding and expressing. They also run antenatal groups across Derbyshire where you can come and learn about feeding your baby and how to do it in a safe and responsive way.
After your baby is 2 weeks old your health visitor will continue to offer support with breastfeeding. Your health visitor will give you information on local breastfeeding groups as well as ensuring you have the national breastfeeding 24/7 helpline number: 0300 100 0212
These are the different contact options you can have with an infant feeding practitioner:
Antenatal groups
During your antenatal contact with the health visitors, you will be given information on how to book onto an IFP antenatal group. You can also visit Derbyshire Family Health Service: What's On to see the locations and dates for the groups. Booking is preferred but not necessary.
24-48 hours after discharge from hospital
Once your baby has been born and you have been discharged home from hospital, the IFPs will contact you to arrange support. At this stage you will receive a phone call from the team to see how you are and how feeding is going so far. They will ask you questions such as…
“How often is baby feeding and how long are feeds?”
“How many wet/dirty nappies has baby had in the last 24 hours?”
“Is feeding comfortable for you?”
From this they will determine and agree with you the next contact either by phone or in the form of a home visit.
2 to 5 days after discharge
The next contact the IFPs have with you is a few days after you have been discharged from hospital. The team will aim to see you at your home for a visit. They will watch a feed and ensure baby is feeding effectively. If they have any concerns with feeding, they can also liaise with the community midwives to arrange support if needed. A visit typically takes around 1 hour but is tailored to you and your family.
Sometimes a home visit is not needed or appropriate, in which case the team will contact you by phone instead. This will have been agreed with you at the 24-48 hour call.
Enhanced contacts
In addition to the above contacts, the IFPs can support you with enhanced contacts up until your baby turns 14 days old. This can be either phone calls or visits depending on you and your baby’s feeding needs. Enhanced contacts can be used for supporting feeding to make it more comfortable or effective and to explore things such as feeding when out and about or questions around returning to work. These contacts are put in place with each individual family as required.
The infant feeding practitioners have a small amount of breast pumps that can be loaned to parents facing challenges with feeding. These are loaned on a short-term basis, usually around 2 weeks at a time, and families are required to meet certain criteria for this to be arranged (for example low milk supply or baby not feeding effectively). There is a small cost to this and so you may be asked for a contribution towards the cost of the breast pump kits.
You can contact the infant feeding practitioners by calling the Derbyshire Family Health Service number on 01246 515100 and selecting option 3 to leave a message for the team. They will aim to call you back the same or next working day.