Gwynneth Jacobs is a volunteer group Leader for La Leche League South Africa. She is also a full-time working mother of two beautiful boys. She discovered the LLLSA Facebook group with her first child and loved reading everyone’s posts and information about breastfeeding. In time she trained as a breastfeeding peer counsellor and later as a Leader.

I came to know about La Leche League Botswana when the twins were around 8 weeks old. Before then, I did not have much information on breastfeeding, but I had always known in my heart that I wanted to breastfeed my babies. The reality of a twin pregnancy had me worried though, I wondered whether I could really do this and I didn’t have many examples of successfully breastfed twins.

I have two children, and I breastfed my first child for 16 months. She was born at the beginning of Covid in 2020 and during that time we didn't get a lot of support for breastfeeding. During Covid there were many restrictions so we really struggled, especially those of us who were first time parents- even my mother was not allowed to visit me. I was all alone with my first child in lockdown, and that was so hard.

With my first child, I was unable to breastfeed exclusively and stopped breastfeeding completely after five months. When I became pregnant with my second baby, I knew I wanted a different experience. I set my heart on breastfeeding for at least one full year.

My breastfeeding journey started off being more challenging than I expected. I struggled with my baby not latching properly, which made feeding very painful. She was choking during the let-down (milk release) and I didn't know what to do. I wasn't even sure what was happening. My breasts became sore, nipples cracked, and my milk ducts felt clogged, which made me feel discouraged and I wanted to stop breastfeeding.

My breastfeeding journey hasn’t been an easy one. As I reflect, I want to share our story not because it is perfect, but because I hope that it may comfort, help or encourage another mother finding her way … then this will have all been worthwhile.

I would like to share my experience in case it may help another mother. My baby weighed 4.8kg when she was 10 weeks old. She was fond of sucking on her dummy and by 14 weeks she had not picked up much weight; she weighed only 5kg. My La Leche League Leader suggested that I stop giving my daughter the dummy and have her go back in one week’s time to check if she had gained weight.

As both a mother and a medical doctor, I have always known that breastfeeding is the best form of nutrition for a baby. It was not just a preference for me, it was a commitment. I was determined to make it work.

It has been an amazing breastfeeding journey with my baby. Let me start off with saying that babies are smart, and they are incredibly instinctual. I think that combined with La Leche League’s support and information any breastfeeding journey can be properly navigated.

I'm a first-time mom of a beautiful six-month-old baby girl, and, like most other mothers - first-timers or not-, my breastfeeding journey has exceeded both my highest and my lowest expectations: it has been life-altering. Breastfeeding completely changed the way I view myself and the world and I could easily talk about it for hours on end. Instead, I decided to write my story down to keep it very specific.

As a grandmother, I was given the privilege of playing an important role in my daughter-in-law's life. Having breastfed my own two sons, who are now fathers themselves, La Leche League was my go-to for encouragement and support 30 years ago. It remains so today, as I care for my breastfed granddaughter while her mommy is at work.

I just wanted to share my experience in case it helps another mom. In the first week after bringing my baby home, she developed jaundice. Besides the blue light therapy, we were told the main way to clear it was for her to feed a lot so that she could pass the bilirubin out through her stools.

Like many mothers, I was incredibly excited to begin my breastfeeding journey after my baby was born. Breastfeeding felt like such a natural and beautiful experience—I never imagined that anything could go wrong.

Gwynneth is a Leader in Cape Town. She is passionate about supporting working moms and has served in various admin roles within LLLSA.

Nan, one of our longest serving leaders, is based in Gqeberha involved with the LLLSA group there as well as active on our Facebook group.