Meet the Infant Feeding Coordinators

The Infant Coordinators are:

Avril Smith Infant Feeding Coordinator for Warrington PCT Community Services Unit
Avril Smith is a Registered General Nurse, Registered Sick Children’s Nurse and Health Visitor. She completed her general training in 1987, practised for about a year and went to train as a Sick Children’s Nurse and on to qualify in 1989. Avril gained a post on Special Care and went on to be a Sister. She completed her Health Visitor training in 1994, and continued to work as a Health Visitor for 9 years in Warrington. Her interest in supporting mothers to breastfeed led her to qualify as a Lactation Consultant in 2005. Having breastfeed her own children, Avril wanted to encourage, support and educate mothers to the benefits and joys of breastfeeding their own babies. She became Infant Feeding coordinator for Warrington CSU in 2008.
Sarah McCormack Infant Feeding Coordinator for Warrington and Halton Hospitals Foundation Trust
Sarah McCormack is a Registered General Nurse and Midwife who did her general training in 1991, and practised for a year before going into Midwifery, qualifying in 1993. She worked for 5 years as a midwife before coming to Warrington in 1998.Sarah has always been interested in breastfeeding, but it wasn’t until she had my own children that she realised how special and rewarding breastfeeding is and how she wanted to help new mothers breastfeed their babies. Sarah became part-time Infant Feeding Coordinator for Warrington Hospital in 2008.

The role of Infant Feeding Coordinators in Warrington

Our aim is to promote, support and encourage breastfeeding across Warrington

With the hospital:

To educate, inform and encourage women to breastfeed during the antenatal period
To increase the numbers of women initiating breastfeeding by supporting them through the early days of breastfeeding whilst women are in hospital
To work closely with community midwives to establish and encourage continuation of breastfeeding for as long as the woman chooses
To liaise with the paediatric wards to support and encourage continuation of breastfeeding

With community health care providers:

Liaise with health visitors and health care team members to encourage continued breastfeeding
To collate and interpret breastfeeding data through liaison with GP practices across Warrington
To educate multidisciplinary staff about breastfeeding using the UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative Breastfeeding Management course. This includes the following staff from the hospital: midwifery, neonatal, paediatric and medical staff. CSU staff include: health visitors, nursery nurses, community staff nurses and clinic nurses.
To offer expert clinical evidence-based advice for breastfeeding mothers and clinical staff, and we welcome GP referrals/queries.

With other partners:

To develop and maintain four breastfeeding support groups in conjunction with Sure Start Children’s Centres.
To coordinate and run promotional/information-giving activities to raise awareness of breastfeeding, which includes working with the local media. This includes annual Breastfeeding Awareness Week (20 June 2011).
To work closely with Trading Standards (Warrington) on the Warrington Food Award that promotes breastfeeding in public venues and retail outlets across the town.
To be involved in Healthy Schools Projects to encourage the inclusion of breastfeeding in the National Curriculum from Foundation Stage to Key Stage 4
To lead on the infant feeding aspect of the child weight management programme that is part of the Healthy Lives, Healthy Weight Strategy for Warrington.
To recruit, educate and supervise our Bosom Buddies volunteers who are trained to support breastfeeding. For more information on this work, please click here

The Department of Health think that breastfeeding is so important that they collect statistics from every Primary Care Trust to monitor progress of initiating breastfeeding and continuing to feed at 6-8 weeks.

Contact us for help, support and advice

For contact all number numbers and/or to send us feedback please click here.

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