The Holding Time Podcast: Recent Episodes
Lisa Creagh
Welcome to the Holding Time Podcast. Here we discuss breastfeeding in all it’s complexity - the ups and down, the challenges, the triumphs. Whether you are expectant, a new mother or simply interested, I hope you’ll appreciate the incredible warrior women who are managing to breastfeed babies across the country.
This podcast is part of the Holding Time Project, an experimental intervention in chronically low breastfeeding statistics. Through music, art and writing, we’re looking at the reality of breastfeeding and listening to mothers who know a thing or two about how things could be better.
In this new episode, marking the launch of the Halton Holding Time project, our writing lead, Rachel New introduces poetry by mothers from the Halton Family Hub Storytelling workshops that took place at Halton Lea Library in Spring 2024. Each mother took part in a six-week workshop series. We hear their written work and find out more about the workshops, what we do in them and how and why they help women process their experiences and find their voices. We hear about tongue tie, premature babies, feeding a toddler, advice for a new mother and so much more. None of these mothers are professional writers but we think you’ll agree, they all have a way with words. To find out more about the project, please visit https://holdingtime.org/2024/04/02/halton-family-hubs-network/You can also see a video version of mothers performing their poetry on our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/c/holdingtime
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Hannah You’re told to go away, and buy some formula, and that’s the end Hannah is a doctor and so her perspective on how women are treated by the health service is very reflective and she uses her experience as a health practitioner to reflect on the ways new mothers needs are not being met by both the NHS and wider. As a mother, she talks about her struggle to adjust to her birth experience and the mental health struggles she has had post partum. She describes the adjustment to the responsibilities of motherhood as a kind of ‘existential dread.
“We would be doing better if this was a problem that men had. It would be, it would look a lot different. And we wouldn’t be kind of we wouldn’t be we wouldn’t be relying on you know, individual practitioners trying to work hard to do the best that they can, it would be a much more joined up approach to making things better”
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/hannah/
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Claire D I Breastfed her in Secret Claire talks about her different experiences of establishing breastfeeding with her two children. She discovered the importance of baby groups with her first child and when the funding for the peer support mentoring in Sefton was axed, she set up Milk Drops, a new peer support service for mothers with her friend Amy.
"And then I attended our breastfeeding group, I remember sitting there looking around at all these women with their boobs out and being like, ‘It’s alright, we all look the same, really. No one’s that bothered’. And it was fine".
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/claire-d/
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Claire G We’re sold an idea that it’s this beautiful, natural, instinctive thing. It isn’t. Claire explores the idea of breastfeeding as a learnt skill and talks about the confidence that comes with experience. She recalls breastfeeding her twins and, previously, an elder sibling who had silent reflux.
"Feeding one child is very, very discreet, generally. Quite often, you don’t notice unless you know what you’re looking for, you’re not going to notice. Feeding two at the same time in public is not discreet at all. And I’ve had to do that a few times".
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/claire-g/
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Natalie B Having a child with a milk allergy is really, really difficult Natalie talks about her experiences of feeding a baby with cow’s milk protein allergy and tongue tie. “I was lucky because I was able to find good support in the community & was able to learn how to use a deeper latch & how to latch her without it being too painful until I was able to get the tongue tie snipped”.
"I knew I wanted to feed her. But having a child with a milk allergy and breastfeeding is really, really difficult. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life".
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/natalie-b/
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Vicky “I can’t do this anymore. Get the formula out” Vicky talks about the convenience of breastfeeding vs Formula and her surprise at falling pregnant after years of Endometriosis.
“I had a couple of days I was like, Well, I can’t do this anymore. Get the formula out. Then you look at the formula. And you think no, actually like….the amount of different things to worry about there and get prepared. And actually, he’s nice and safe. And he does what he wants here. So then I go back to it. And then like I said, when I thought actually you know what, this is a minefield, just do what you were doing then actually suddenly it’s cracked".
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/vicky/
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Nicola Whoa, this isn’t from breastfeeding Nicola talks about breastfeeding with Raynaud’s and the difficulty of getting a diagnosis during lockdown.
"I had Raynaud’s. It was the cold that would cause the pain and I’d been treating myself, got a doctor to treat me for thrush for through almost a month. And it obviously wasn’t clearing because it wasn’t thrush. And, because of COVID, you weren’t really properly seeing a doctor so no one was giving you a proper diagnosis. It was only one morning, when I hadn’t fed her, the pain came, I thought, ‘Whoa, this isn’t from breastfeeding.” And then I clicked, I looked it up and so I was able to get that treated".
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/nicola/
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Catherine I don’t want them to go through what I went through Catherine talks about the stress of watching her 10 day old fed on a radical weight gain programme in hospital and the impact it had on her mental health long term.
“I’m so passionate about breastfeeding now more so than ever and any new mum that starts breastfeeding I just want to help them i just want to support them I just want to do everything i can to because it’s lonely isn’t it and it can be quite isolating I feel protective over people who are having issues because if they don’t get that support i don’t want them to go through what I went through”.
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/catherine/
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Kelly It made such a difference straightaway Kelly on breastfeeding support and dealing with tongue tie after her baby was born at Liverpool Mother and Baby Unit. Kelly began training as a midwife and would still like to support mothers. She says, ” I think that the support’s not there for women. But I don’t mean like the support services. I mean your family and society understanding how demanding breastfeeding is”
"Because he had jaundice, they referred him really quickly. He had it snipped at day five, it was fantastic. I couldn’t sing the praises well enough of the midwives, postnatally and the breastfeeding families and the tongue-tie service. I couldn’t believe how quickly it got sorted. And it made such a difference straightaway as well".
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/kelly/
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Amy Amy talks about establishing breastfeeding during lockdown, post natal depression, breastfeeding support, and comparing her experiences of breast and formula feeding.
“When she got weighed she’d lost about 11.5% of her birth weight. And they were like threatening like hospital and put me on a feeding plan. It was just really, really intense. I ended up pumping, breastfeeding and giving her a top of a formula as well at the beginning. And I think I’ve had more tears than actual milk in the first few days because it was just super stressful”.
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/amy/
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Suzanne ‘When people tell you stuff, you assume it’s right’ Suzanne talks about the differences she has experienced growing up in Birkenhead, where breastfeeding rates are low, compared to Indonesia where she has been working and where breastfeeding is the norm. Suzanne advises education as key to successful breastfeeding but also, as a single parent, acknowledges the key support she received from her mother and the local infant feeding support team at Koalas North West.
“My health visitor seemed quite knowledgeable (from what I know) but that’s one of the challenges I think of having a baby is we don’t know. I don’t know everything about babies, so when people tell you stuff, you assume it’s right because you just don’t know and one of my biggest stresses is What don’t I know? I should be reading more..I should be watching videos, I should be doing classes..there’s a wealth of information and I just don’t know“.
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/suzanne/
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Natalie W I just thought I could like, ask for the help, and it would be there Natalie talks about how her sons tongue tie wasn’t diagnosed for the first four weeks because the hospital where she gave birth didn’t automatically refer her to breastfeeding support. Natalie’s son had a tongue tie which was eventually cut after she paid to have it cut privately.
“I just thought, Oh, the help that I need, like when I want to breastfeed will just be there. How wrong was. I just thought I could like, ask for the help, and it would be there. That was a bit of a shock to the system. And then it was like, right, well, I’m gonna have to teach myself now. And yeah, that’s what I did.”
"Eventually after a couple of days I called them up because I was managing, okay during the day and weirdly, if I went out and about, I just had to get on with feeding so I didn’t faff around. And it just seemed to work better when I was out of the house. Three o’clock in the morning was just horrendous".
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/natalie-w/
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Victoria Victoria talks about her struggle to feed her premature baby, born 2.7lbs nine weeks early and her second 4lb child after having an emergency C-Section. Starting out in the hospital with Midwives who are too busy to sit with her whilst she attempts to feed, she struggles to establish a pain-free latch. When she returns home, the local support service, Koala North West support her in trying nipple shields for a month but her baby doesn’t gain much weight. Finally, she stops using nipple shields, accepting that it may hurt and discovers it no longer hurts and her baby is now gaining weight.
“I just wanted somebody to show me what to do because my boy little boy was born nine weeks early. So I didn’t really, I didn’t do very well with the breastfeeding with him. I tried. But they wouldn’t allow me to wear nipple shields in the hospital. It wasn’t policy. And then as soon as I came out, we tried nipple shields on and he latched because he was only two pounds seven when he was born. And then, but by that point, I just wasn’t making enough milk for him. So he was combination fed, but then at five and a half months, my milk just stopped”.
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/victoria/
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Michelle ‘I was Told I Couldn’t Breastfeed’ Michelle talks about how her awareness about the importance of breastfeeding has grown across the years, after feeding three children. As an experienced breastfeeding mother, she says she grieved after being told in pregnancy that she wouldn’t be able to breastfeed her newborn as she would need surgery. When the time came, however, the intervention of one of the nurses, meant that she was able to feed Alexi after all.
"Alexi was born with congenital heart disease. And right away was taken off me. I was told I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed. I had to have a section. So there was that space. And then they said, she’s going if you don’t know how poorly she’ll be, and then she’ll need the surgery, you won’t be able to feed after surgery. And it was just really negative of everyone’s position on it. And I really grieved that.. that I wouldn’t be able to feed her".
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/michelle/
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Ellen It’s been the highlight of my mothering journey so far Ellen talks about the importance of a network of mothers, especially during lockdown and reflects on breastfeeding in public.
"Throughout lockdown it was very difficult, you didn’t want to meet people in different stages: one lady would have given birth so you didn’t want to go meet them because they’d just had the baby and you were heavily pregnant yourself and, yeah, it was hard".
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/ellen/
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Jennifer I wanted to be with my mum but I needed to be with him as well Jennifer talks about breastfeeding whilst nursing her dying mother and how she never expected to feed for so long.
“I had a little person that kept shouting and screaming at me and I wanted to be with my mum but I needed to be with him as well and my husband did take him off and he would have formula he would have bottled, he had what he needed at that point what he needed to have and for both of us really and but it was still predominantly breastfeeding. I felt so torn between the two and I was in I had massive anxiety at the time everything just feels when I look back now everything just feels really kind of dreamlike I’m not entirely sure how we got through that”
https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/jennifer/
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Welcome to the Holding Time Podcast. Here we discuss breastfeeding in all it’s complexity - the ups and down, the challenges, the triumphs. Whether you are expectant, a new mother or simply interested, I hope you’ll appreciate the incredible warrior women who are managing to breastfeed babies across the country.
This podcast is part of the Holding Time Project, an experimental intervention in chronically low breastfeeding statistics. Through music, art and writing, we’re looking at the reality of breastfeeding and listening to mothers who know a thing or two about how things could be better.
Ellie
I just felt better prepared.
Ellie talks about the differences between her first and second children, born twenty years apart. After a huge struggle to feed her first, she resolves to be better prepared the second time around and finally succeeds.
“I just thought, I’m determined to breastfeed. So I got books, I watched videos, I went to classes before I went…. And just felt better prepared than the first time and I suppose more prepared for the fact…that she wasn’t just going to feed and it’d be magic. It might work for some people like that. But the more people I speak to, I don’t think there are many people that that happens for”.
Find out more by visiting https://holdingtime.org/portfolio/ellie/
Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lisa-creagh/message
Welcome to the Holding Time Podcast. Here we discuss breastfeeding in all its complexity - the ups and downs, the challenges, and the triumphs. Whether you are expectant, a new mother or simply interested, I hope you’ll appreciate the incredible warrior women who are managing to breastfeed babies across the country.
This podcast is part of the Holding Time Project, an experimental intervention in chronically low breastfeeding statistics. Through music, art and writing, we’re looking at the reality of breastfeeding and listening to mothers who know a thing or two about how things could be better.
Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lisa-creagh/message