Before welcoming our second child Rupert into a family, I was adamant I wasn’t going to put any added pressure on myself to feed a certain way and take every day as it came. Rupert was born and instantly were also in love with him, he was perfect.

I remember leaving the postnatal ward, adamant to breastfeed, yet with the poorest latch that only led to sore nipples and painfully engorged breasts! If I ever dared to mention the pain, everyone was quick to suggest alternative feeding methods and formula.

I gave birth to my son Rupert (Roo) in November 2020. I was blessed to have a straightforward, physiological birth so my breastfeeding journey went off to a smooth-ish start. I was fortunate enough to have lots of skin to skin and, being a midwife, you could argue that I had a head start in terms of having the knowledge and expertise behind me. However, this of course was not the case! Although I knew that hand expressing was useful, I had no idea that I was going to be completely relying on it for the first 3-4 days until Roo learned to latch. As each day went by, Roo’s colour changed and, although he was doing very well, neonatal jaundice took hold and we had to be readmitted to hospital on day 5.

I took to breastfeeding very naturally, although of course it didn’t come without its self-doubt and feelings of uncertainty at times. What I wasn’t expecting though was the pain. Was it even supposed to hurt? It was 5 days postpartum when I was hit with the intensity of being engorged! I had skipped a feed, albeit consciously as I could feel the leakage happening, but I was too busy enjoying the company of other adults after being attached to my newborn all day and night. Once I made my way up to feed, my baby had fallen asleep so I took the opportunity to express some milk.

Having breastfed my firstborn for 21 months, you would think I've got it all figured out! But even then the postpartum niggles and doubts get the better of you. Shaheda was such great support after my secondborn. My son had a tongue tie (and although my daughter did too, which was released at 4 months, the second time around all the doubts came rushing back) but Shaheda was brilliant! She reassured me in the early days, answered all of my questions I had and gave me confidence in myself.

Shaheda is quite simply the best specialist you can wish for when it comes to breastfeeding. Her knowledge is invaluable and she has an incredible understanding of how women breasts actually work! Her colostrum harvesting package is great. Shaheda came around and before I knew it we had several syringes full of colostrum. With her help, guidance and support I had a nice collection of expressed milk in the freezer.

Being admitted to hospital at 32 weeks, before an emergency c-section at 33 weeks was not exactly part of the plan and with 2 months to go I hadn’t given considerable thought to breastfeeding yet at all. We knew that after the C-Section my daughter would be taken straight to NICU, and whilst the practicalities of that were explained to us the importance of colostrum and hand expressing was not and at the time we didn’t think (or know!) to ask.

I gave birth to Momo, my 2nd born in May 2019. Thankfully, my labour and delivery were both a breeze. We stayed a night in hospital and were discharged the next day. From the very beginning he was breastfeeding fine, but on day 3 we attended A&E with another issue and then ended up being admitted into SCBU due to jaundice which was normal for newborns at this age.

When I fell pregnant with Mahi, I was sure I wanted to breast feed, however didn’t have the slightest clue about it, or what it would involve, other than my breast, and the said sleepless nights. This is where Mother Shaheda came in. Her content has always been so useful and interesting that I knew I could trust the advice. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I was willing to take up the challenge after learning about all of its benefits.

For both of my children I knew I wanted to exclusively breastfeed from the start. I wasn't able to with my first, partly due to a latching issue, a lack of support and education. Now with baby M, I again found myself at the point where I was really struggling with breastfeeding. I was feeling the same anxiety and pressure I felt with my first.

I had always planned to harvest colostrum antenatally, as I knew there were many benefits learning how to do it before the baby is born, helping to release oxytocin and the added bonus that if I got any colostrum I could freeze this! There is so much conflicting advice out there (even as a midwife!) so I had planned to start at 36-37 weeks. However, after discovering at a routine scan at 34 weeks that my baby was measuring a little bit smaller, Shaheda reassured me there was no evidence that expressing small amounts from 34 weeks would induce labour.

I gave birth to my beautiful daughter Jeevaa in July 2021. I had a great pregnancy and knew I wanted to try and exclusively breastfeed. When it was time for me to give birth I had some complications and lost a lot of blood. As soon as my daughter was born I had to be rushed to theatre which meant I was unable to breastfeed for a few hours.

I delivered my baby boy, Riaan, at 36 + 6 last April by planned caesarean. When I was around 5 months pregnant, they detected that he was a small baby but couldn’t work out why. This is when I was introduced to Shaheda through a relative. With her experience as a midwife and her personal experience of her own pregnancy and birth, she talked me through all the medical jargon and helped me ask all the right questions when I went for my weekly fetal medicine scans.

I have now breastfed our baby for over 6 months (it feels amazing to say that!) and we are still going strong. Shaheda was invaluable to our journey and I’ll be forever thankful to her for empowering and encouraging me to give our baby the best possible start in life, despite pretty adverse and unexpected circumstances.

On January 22nd 2021, I had a beautiful baby girl called Zahra Nisa. I had a long labour but delivered naturally. However, I unfortunately had a postpartum haemorrhage straight after in which I lost nearly 3 litres of blood; Zahra was taken off me before I could nurse her and I was rushed to theatre and put under a general anaesthetic so that the doctors could stop my bleeding.