When Support Doesn’t Feel Supportive - part 2 for World Breastfeeding week 2026

There’s one diary entry I still struggle to read. Not because I blame anyone involved, but because it reminds me just how vulnerable those early weeks of motherhood can be.

One conversation. One appointment. And years later, I can still remember exactly how it felt.

I wrote:

“The health visitor has been and you haven’t put on any weight this week. It was a really tough appointment and she’s suggested we triple feed six to eight times a day. I’m just not sure I can cope with this whilst standing and rocking and reassuring you all hours of the day. It’s left me in pieces and I’m sure it’s the extra formula making you more poorly - so to add more in just as you were getting so much better on less is really weighing on my mind, but the health visitor wasn’t too interested in that - she just wants you heavier next week.”

When I read those words now, I hear someone desperately trying to make another person understand the bigger picture.

At the time, my daughter had undiagnosed cow’s milk protein allergy (CMPA). So much attention was on my milk supply that the signs were missed for longer than they should have been.

Of course she needed to gain weight. That mattered. But so did the person feeding her.

I was still recovering from a significant postpartum haemorrhage. My body was trying to heal after a traumatic birth while I poured everything I had into making breastfeeding work. I was sleeping in tiny fragments, spending almost every waking hour feeding, pumping or trying to settle my daughter. Physically, I was exhausted. Emotionally, I was hanging on by a thread.

Looking back, I don’t think I needed another feeding plan. I needed someone to ask, “How are you coping?” And I needed someone to recognise how hard I was trying.

I needed someone to remind me that I mattered too.

This isn’t about criticising one health visitor or suggesting healthcare professionals don’t care. My experience across both breastfeeding journeys included professionals whose kindness, reassurance and knowledge made an enormous difference.

What this experience did teach me is that support is about far more than information. It’s the questions we ask, the words we choose and the way we make someone feel.

This year’s World Breastfeeding Week theme, Breastfeeding for a Sustainable Start in Life: Strengthen What Works, calls for stronger breastfeeding support, policies and communities. I wholeheartedly support that message. But I also think strengthening what works means recognising that breastfeeding support isn’t just about protecting breastfeeding itself. It’s about protecting the person doing the breastfeeding too.

Research shows that compassionate, skilled breastfeeding support can improve both breastfeeding continuation and a mother’s confidence (McFadden et al., 2017). Yet many mothers describe leaving appointments feeling judged, dismissed or as though the only thing that mattered was the number on the scales, rather than how they were coping themselves (Brown & Shenker, 2021). When mothers feel heard, supported and cared for, we strengthen breastfeeding by strengthening mothers.

I can understand why.

Those first few weeks are fragile. You’re recovering from pregnancy and birth while learning to care for a baby you’ve only just met. Every cry feels significant. Every feed feels important. Every weigh-in can feel like a verdict.

And when confidence starts to crack, fear has a habit of filling the silence.

⸻

The Stories We Quietly Tell Ourselves

One of the things CBT has taught me is that our minds are brilliant storytellers.

Sometimes those stories help us and sometimes they quietly pull us apart. Without even noticing, I’d started telling myself one.

If my daughter wasn’t gaining enough weight…

I wasn’t making enough milk.

If I wasn’t making enough milk…

my body was failing.

And if my body was failing…

maybe I was failing too.

Those thoughts didn’t appear overnight. They built slowly. One feed at a time. One weigh-in at a time. One difficult day after another.

Looking back now, I can see that breastfeeding had become tangled up with my identity. It wasn’t simply about feeding my daughter anymore. It had become the measure I was using to decide whether I was enough.

At the time, I couldn’t see that. I just knew every setback felt deeply personal. Every bottle felt like failure. Every top-up felt like proof that I wasn’t the mum I wanted to be.

Introducing formula brought its own wave of emotions. Logically, I knew my daughter needed feeding. I knew the formula was helping with weight gain. Emotionally, it felt like something very different.

One diary entry says:

“You have a bottle during the night and you guzzle down the bottle and it makes me so upset that you might not be getting enough from me, that I cannot provide what you need to survive and thrive. I feel that being able to feed you is what makes me ‘Mam’. If I can no longer do that then anyone could be Mam. I feel like I am letting you down.”

Those words still catch me off guard because I remember believing them completely.

Now, as a CBT therapist, I understand how easily exhausted minds can mistake thoughts for facts. Sleep deprivation, physical recovery, hormonal changes and the relentless responsibility of caring for a newborn can magnify fear, self-criticism and self-doubt until they feel unquestionably true.

I wish I’d known then what I know now.

Being my daughter’s mum was never measured in ounces of milk.

It was in the way I held her when she cried.

The way I soothed her.

The way I looked at her.

The way I loved her.

Those were the things that mattered all along.

If World Breastfeeding Week asks us to “Strengthen What Works”, I hope we continue strengthening breastfeeding support, skilled lactation care and communities that help families reach their feeding goals. But I also hope we strengthen something just as important: our ability to notice the mother sitting in front of us. Because babies thrive when they’re fed. Mothers thrive when they feel seen. And those two things should never be separated.

You can read part one of the series here and stay tune for parts 3-5.

Sophie 🍃

World Breastfeeding Week 2026 Series

• Part 1 – I Thought Breastfeeding Made Me a Mother

• Part 2 – When Breastfeeding Support Doesn’t Feel Supportive

• Part 3 – Nothing About My Body Had Changed

• Part 4 – Confidence Changed Everything

• Part 5 – You Were Always Enough