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Where to get real breastfeeding help
We write about the milk once it's in the freezer: clocks, boxes, money. The feeding itself belongs to women with training we don't have, so this page hands you straight to them.
If you need help with feeding right now, ring one of these. They are free, staffed by trained volunteers and clinicians, and used to hearing someone cry down the phone.
UK: National Breastfeeding Helpline 0300 100 0212, 9.30am to 9.30pm every day · La Leche League GB 0345 120 2918, a callback line. US: National Breastfeeding Helpline 1-800-994-9662, weekdays 9am to 6pm ET · La Leche League 1-877-452-5324, live in business hours and voicemail the rest of the time. If it's the middle of the night in the UK, NHS 111 is the line that always answers.
If something is frightening you right now, stop reading websites, ours included: in the UK your midwife, health visitor, GP or NHS 111, and 999 in an emergency; in the US your doctor, your baby’s paediatrician, or 911.
What we're good for, and what we aren't
Ask us: how long milk keeps and why the British and American numbers disagree · how to build and rotate a freezer stash · how to pack frozen milk so it arrives frozen · what surplus milk is worth · the law and the council paperwork · how to choose between the milk bank, sharing and selling.
Ask someone with training: a latch that hurts · supply that worries you, in either direction · mastitis, blocked ducts, thrush, blebs · a baby who isn't gaining weight, feeding or wetting nappies · tongue tie · medication, alcohol, illness and what reaches the milk · weaning on a timetable that suits your body.
The second list is longer than the first, and we are not embarrassed about that. It is also the list where a wrong sentence on a website does real damage, which is why ours doesn't have those sentences in it.
Attaching Your Baby at the Breast
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United Kingdom
All free, all staffed by trained volunteers or clinicians, and every one of them is used to being rung by someone in tears. You will not be the worst call of their day. None of them runs overnight, though, so if it is 3am and something is wrong, NHS 111 is the number that always answers.
| Who | Number | When |
|---|---|---|
| National Breastfeeding Helpline | 0300 100 0212 | Every day, 9.30am to 9.30pm – also in Welsh, Polish, Bengali and Sylheti |
| La Leche League GB | 0345 120 2918 | Callback line – leave a message and a leader rings you back, usually within a day |
| Association of Breastfeeding Mothers | 0300 330 5453 | 9.30am to 10.30pm |
| NCT infant feeding line | 0300 330 0700 | 8am to midnight |
| The Breastfeeding Network | via 0300 100 0212 | Their old Supporterline has merged into the national helpline; their Drugs in Breastmilk service – the place for medication questions – is reached through their website |
- Your own team first, always. Midwife, health visitor, GP practice, and the infant feeding team at the hospital you gave birth in. Local drop-in groups and baby cafés are usually run by them.
- Find a lactation consultant: the Lactation Consultants of Great Britain directory lists IBCLCs by area, most of whom will do a home or video visit.
- The NHS pages on expressing and storing milk are the reference we check our own storage guide against.
- Milk banks: UKAMB lists the human milk banks serving neonatal units, and the Human Milk Foundation also supports families at home.
United States
| Who | Number | When |
|---|---|---|
| National Breastfeeding Helpline (Office on Women's Health) | 1-800-994-9662 | Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm ET, English and Spanish |
| La Leche League | 1-877-452-5324 | Volunteers in business hours; leave a voicemail any other time and a leader calls back |
- Find an IBCLC: the United States Lactation Consultant Association and ILCA both run directories. Many visits are insurance-covered under the ACA – ask.
- On WIC? Peer counsellors come with the programme and cost you nothing.
- Storage and handling: the CDC's guidelines are the American reference behind our clocks table.
- Medication questions: LactMed, the NIH's drugs-and-lactation database, and the InfantRisk Center. Both are used by clinicians and readable by anyone.
- Milk banks: HMBANA lists the non-profit banks that supply hospitals across North America.
Why a milk marketplace is sending you elsewhere
We could have written our own thin versions of all of it and gone after the search traffic. Plenty of sites in this corner of the internet do exactly that, with a shop bolted to the bottom. A phone number staffed by someone who has talked a thousand mothers through the same night beats our best paragraph, and pretending otherwise would be the first small lie in a business that cannot afford any.
It also keeps the boundary clean. MilkMom is a marketplace in the making for milk that isn't going to your baby. The feeding of your own baby is not a thing we would ever want to be selling you advice about.