Infant feeding

The Specialist Infant Feeding Service works with families whose babies are experiencing feeding problems requiring more intensive or specialist support including:

• difficulty with latch
• poor milk supply
• sore nipples or other breast problems
• slow weight gain or faltering growth
• breast refusal
• illness or condition
• suspected restricted frenulum (tongue-tie)
• induced lactation or re-lactation
• advice and guidance in the use of a supplementary nursing system (SNS).

The Specialist Infant Feeding Team includes lactation consultants and breastfeeding assistant practitioners.

• Lactation consultants are accredited specialists who can support with complex feeding issues including assessing babies with a suspected tongue-tie.
• Breastfeeding assistant practitioners are trained and experienced in providing breastfeeding support. Our team also supports individuals to complete clinical placements and training which are part of the requirements to become an accredited lactation consultant.

Support is available to all families whether they are bottle or breastfeeding.

The team are piloting a Kent-wide Tongue-Tie Co-ordination Service – providing a centralised referral and appointment booking route as well as support pre and post tongue-tie procedure. This service works in partnership with East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust who provide tongue-tie procedures in Kent.

The team supported the wider Health Visiting Service and staff from children’s centres across Kent to reach full UNICEF accreditation as baby friendly services. The team are preparing for re-accreditation in December 2023.

 

How do I refer?

Referrals to the service can be made using the Specialist Infant Feeding Service referral form. for any issue including a suspected tongue-tie that is affecting feeding. Referrals should only be made once an infant feeding assessment and plan have been put in place and reassessed at least 48 hours with the parent/carer. The existing feeding plan must be evidenced in the referral. All families should be signposted to local support at the Beside You website.

For those babies who have already seen a lactation consultant, infant feeding advisor or breastfeeding counsellor who has identified a tongue-tie, a referral can be made directly to the Tongue-Tie Co-ordination Service using the Kent Frenulotomy (tongue-tie) referral form.

What happens next?

Once the team receive a referral, they will arrange for an initial assessment to be completed within five working days. A care plan will be developed in partnership with the family, and may include follow up appointments or referring to other specialist services.

Families are seen one-to-one via telephone or video call, or face-to-face at a clinic or at home if required.

Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust and Kent County Council children centres are accredited by UNICEF using the Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) scheme. The Infant Feeding Team complete regular anonymous audits either by telephone or face-to-face with families using the Unicef standard BFI community and children centre audit tool.

Useful contacts

Parents and carers can get in touch with their Health Visiting Team for general support.

Beside You offers help and support with breastfeeding including details of local breastfeeding drop-in sessions and virtual groups.

For support out of hours, you can contact the National Breastfeeding Helpline 0300 100 0212 (open 9.30am to 9.30pm every day of the year)

Practitioners

We work hard to make sure client information is safe. Most practitioner email accounts are not encrypted. We will therefore send information by a secure method called Egress, you will need to register for an account in order to open any correspondence we send you that contains sensitive or identifiable information. When we correspond with you in relation to a referral you will receive an email that looks like this, just click on the blue bar and it will take you to Egress in order to register for an account so you can read and respond to emails securely.