Annie Seymour - Certified Breastfeeding Specialist

31/05/2025

15/02/2025

Iceland (The supermarket!) have started to place information cards under their formula shelves, telling people that the ingredients are (pretty much) the same, regardless of the brand you buy. I haven't looked deeply into their reasons for this, or the charity they've teamed up with, but on the surface my initial reaction is that this seems to be a great move.

Formula ingredients and composition in the UK are strictly monitored, meaning that if something is known to be important it has to be included, and in the right amount. This means that despite some common and lingering ideas that a couple of more expensive brands are "better" they are in fact almost identical to cheaper brands. (And often even made on the same production line but just put into a different package!)

Making this information better known can help parents to make decisions that have less financial impact on their family and helps to lower the anxiety we often see around switching between brands if the one you usually go for is unavailable.

What are your thoughts? Is this a step towards helping families make more informed choices about the milk they feed their babies, or should we be cynical about a big brand doing something like this? 🤔

23/01/2025

If you ever thought learning to breastfeed was tricky, just be glad you didn't have to learn it while also swimming...

Send a message to learn more

12/12/2024

Are you or a friend preparing to give birth? I produced a handout to help my pregnant mums in the first 24h of breastfeeding: something to pop in the hospital bag and refer to when they need it. I realised that it might be good to share it here, so anyone can access it if helpful.

And let me know what do YOU wish you’d known for the first 24h?!

13/11/2024

Ooof, yep!

31/10/2024

Today is the last day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so this is a PSA to go get checked! Never had a mammogram? Been putting it off? I love this video explainer of the process to make us feel at ease with it.

A mammogram is an important step in taking care of yourself and your breasts but not knowing what to anticipate can be stressful. Join Monica for her first m...

18/10/2024

THE TREATMENT FOR MASTITIS HAS CHANGED!
The new 2022 clinical protocol for treating mastitis was such a radical u-turn from previous guidance that a lot of advice from the internet and paediatricians hasn’t yet caught up. Previously, it was: “heat, rest, empty the breast” plus terrifyingly vigorous massage and antibiotics. This sometimes worked, but sometimes made things much worse. NOW we know to:
- feed on demand but minimise extra pumping
- use ice instead of heat
- use ibuprofen (a high dose - 800mg, 3x per 24h for two days)
- gentle lymphatic drainage towards the ARMPIT rather than massage toward the ni**le
- take lecithin.
This page gives a great summary, and a link to the full protocol: https://www.formodernmothers.com/blog/new-mastitis-protocol

Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions!

I like to keep you up to date & informed, so you can make the right decisions for you and your baby. This one is all about breastfeeding, and about a recent update to the Mastitis protocol. It’s important as it actually turns-on-it’s head a lot of the previous recommendations for Mastitis.

27/09/2024

Having a newborn brings out the poo-obsessive in all of us 💩. You're almost certainly going to see some green poo - but why?! In most cases, it's nothing to be concerned about. But it helps to know what’s normal, possible causes, and some of the common myths. I really like how this article succinctly explains it.

Baby p**p is high on many new parents’ worry list. How often should baby p**p? Does baby’s p**p provide clues to how breastfeeding is going? What do color and consistency mean? When should you worry? Normal Color and Consistency Baby’s first stools are the black and tarry meconium that was in ...

21/08/2024

Paced bottle feeding - I recommend it to all my bottle-feeding mums, for healthy and responsive bottle-feeding (whether breastmilk or formula), and to help babies alternate between bottles and breastfeeding for families doing both. It's a game-changer - yet so few families receive information about it! Let's change that. This 3min video is a really helpful explainer.

A breastfed baby should be paced fed with the bottle so that the baby doesn't develop a "flow preference" and then begin to reject the breast. This video sho...

14/08/2024

"In the UK, 81% of women initiate exclusive breastfeeding, but after six months, only about 1% are still exclusively feeding their babies breast milk." What comes to mind when you read that stat? While some gladly make this choice as the right one for their families, for many of those mums, that decision is one of the hardest they ever make. Breastfeeding grief is under-recognised and poorly supported - I'm so glad the BBC is raising awareness.

Some women cannot breastfeed however much they try - and the loss of this moment stays with them.

21/03/2024

15/03/2024

I don't know if this is true everywhere, but here in Bangkok you can take your baby to any hospital paediatric unit and weigh him. For free. No fuss. No appointment needed. No need to buy scales.

You can put your mind at rest or get the information you need to make informed decisions. Whenever I mention this to my nursing families, they don't realise - so let me spread the word!