Next week marks three years since I made the very difficult decision to quit my job as a breastfeeding practitioner, I absolutely adored my job and helping the expectant and new mums to succeed with their breastfeeding journey as well as discussing and liaising with other healthcare professionals on how we could all best support those new mums, unfortunately it no longer fitted in with our family situation and the changing of health trusts meant that the ‘team’ that I had been working with was split in two and there was just too much work for a few practitioners to deal with, and with no increase in hours or money it became increasingly difficult to do the job to the level that made a difference.
When I first started in the job I just assumed that all of the healthcare workers knew as much about breastfeeding as I did, (I guess mine was more in a practical sense after breastfeeding each of the seven between 12 months and 3 years) but it soon became apparent that some had not focused on this area and were keen to learn more and understand how they could support their new mums to achieve their feeding aims and goals, it was lovely working together to ensure each mum had the help and support she required, so it was heartbreaking when the ‘breastfeeding team’ was no longer in place, thankfully the health visiting team that I worked with had some amazing ladies that were totally pro breastfeeding so I knew the area I had been working in would be in safe hands, although i’m not so sure that could be said of other local catchments.
Thankfully there are lots of resources available to enhance the health professional’s learning, I have been taking a look at Health Professional Academy which has lots of amazing information, it is a free learning platform with Academically approved CPD modules for GP’s, breastfeeding practitioners and health visitors. It has so much information and could be extremely useful for anyone working in the health field, but also just as information for new mums, with topics such as Car Seat Safety, Colic and Dental Hygiene, as well as more health related topics such as pre eclampsia and Anti D.
Even though I am no longer working within the healthcare profession, I still love to learn and keep up to date with new information, who knows, maybe one day i’ll be in a situation when I am able to return to this type of work, I feel confident knowing that Health Professional Academy’s content is designed by experts – working collaboratively with HCPs and leading academics, their learning community is made up of 11,000 registered users and supported by a social community of 20K+
It is a learning community from the team that know women and their babies best – sister company to Emma’s Diary and Families. All health information included in the learning modules and resources comply with UK government guidelines (e.g. NHS, BFI, NICE) I can imagine this would have been an amazing resource when I started my nursing career 22 years ago, certainly a lot easier to access than driving 90 minutes to the nursing campus to access the giant medical journals from the hospital library!
Have you checked out the Health Professional Academy or do you know someone that would benefit from taking a couple of the modules, I can remember reading so many books about pregnancy and birth when I first found out I was expecting, this is surely must easier to access!
This is a collaborative post