Jasmine Franklin

To the beautiful women at the Helensville birthing unit – I just wanted to say thank you each and every one of you, literally. I really, really struggled with breastfeeding with both of my children in every way possible. My first child Saskia was born, and hours later my nipples were so sore and damaged. Upon entering the birthing unit for my stay, Claire identified that Saskia had a lip and tongue tie, and quickly arranged for that to be fixed. The staff at the birthing unit supported me day and night with latch, ways to relieve the pain, offering shields, and anything to help me persevere. They even let me stay an extra night, as I was finding the whole thing really hard. Breastfeeding was very painful for a good length of time after that, but thankfully it did become easy and pain free, and I was able to exclusively breast feed Saskia for 12 months. 2.5 years later, I had Arlo under the care of Michelle. She was aware of my breastfeeding concerns, and she identified immediately that Arlo also had a lip and tongue tie. She put in a big effort to help me latch Arlo the best I could, and arranged for me to have Arlo seen by the newly trained doctor at Helensville who could cut Arlo’s ties. Debbie was also an amazing support who saw me through this process from start to end, with follow up check ins. Breastfeeding was just as hard this time, and I also developed a pretty bad case of mastitis. Both Debbie and another midwife were amazing at doing what they could in this situation. They even brought me up to Helensville and worked for an hour with me on a pump with heat pads and all the bells and whistles, to try and remove my lumps. Maybe 6 weeks post birth, I was able to breast feed easily, and I proudly exclusively breastfeed Arlo for 16 months. I am so thankful and so appreciative of all the ladies at the birthing unit who went above and beyond to support me through that first month especially of pain, confusion and breastfeeding troubles. I literally could not have done it without their care and love, and I hope they know how important they are, and what they mean to us new mums when it is so scary and hard. Forever thankful