Foundation Course

While our Peer Supporter Course is for mothers/parents who have breastfeed for at least six months and who wish to support families on a voluntary basis, this course is suitable for a broad range of people. You may be a health care professional or a professional who has contact with mothers/parents in a work setting such as a nursery or postnatal class. You do not need to have had children to undertake this course. If you do have children you may have not have breastfed at all or only briefly.

The £175 course fee includes membership of The ABM for one year.  You will be given 16 weeks to complete the course once enrolled.  Please ensure you are able to meet this deadline before purchasing this course.

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Group and/or Organisation-paid Trainees

An administration fee will apply for any traineeships on our Mother Supporter, Breastfeeding Counsellor, Foundation and Advanced courses not paid for by the individual trainee. The admin fees are as follows:

• Individual Trainees = £5 per person
• Groups up to 10 = £50 flat rate
• Groups up to 20 = £100 flat rate
• Groups of more than 20 = £150 flat rate

This fee applies in any instance an organisation, NHS Trust or similar institution pays the training fee for an individual or group on one of our courses, and will be applied as standard. Any bookings of this type require a signed training agreement before enrollment.

The ABM runs helplines and trains volunteers and health professionals from across the UK to support breastfeeding families. By continuing your membership beyond the first year, you can help make a difference as well as receiving our membership pack and magazines. Find out more about membership

We have been training breastfeeding supporters since 1979. This course has been created by a team of lactation consultants, breastfeeding counsellors and peer supporters. We hope that you will gain knowledge and confidence to help you support breastfeeding families effectively.

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Course Description

Thank you for applying for ABM Breastfeeding training. You are expected to complete this course within 16 weeks of enrolling.

We are pleased to accept you for the Breastfeeding Support Foundation Module.

We wish you all the best with your training and hope you enjoy completing it.

The course aims to help you learn more about normal breastfeeding and human lactation. We aren’t expecting you to have an in-depth specialist knowledge of breastfeeding problems and we don’t require you to write long or involved answers to the questions. This training course has been structured so that it will easily fit within the constraints of work and family life.

The course format is set out in a way to enable you to use a variety of resources. These include:

• Evidenced-based research articles and papers.
• A variety of short professional films.
• A wide range of real-life audio / film clips.
• Facebook Trained and Training Group (Click Here).
  (You are welcome to remain a member of our closed Trained and Training Facebook group as long as your ABM membership is valid. We ask all members to read the guidelines in the pinned post on arrival).
• Books from the recommended further learning reading list.

When you have completed the lessons in each section, you’ll be able to demonstrate your knowledge through a series of question and answer quizzes. Some questions will be multiple choice while others will ask you to reflect or go into more depth. Your answers should be research or evidence-based, and not just your own opinions.

The lessons contain trusted resources which you’ll need to use to complete this course. There is a wealth of information available on the internet, some more reliable than others. It is vital that any resources used are research based information and written by a qualified breastfeeding expert.

Many of the resources are available in a printable format at the end of the course. When talking to a mum, you are likely to want to share these resources or you may wish to refer to them at a later date. Some of the resources we use are YouTube based. You may find these difficult to access if the security settings are set too high on the device that you are using. e.g. If you have ‘restricted mode’ switched on in YouTube.

When you’ve completed each multiple-choice section, you’ll know whether you need to look at your answers again or if you can move forward to the next section. When you’ve successfully completed the course the marking team will be notified that you feel your work is complete. A marker will then assess the more complex reflections and longer answer questions. Once this final stage is complete, you will receive a congratulations email with a printable copy of your Pass certificate or you will be asked to expand on your answers where necessary.

Learning Outcomes

• We anticipate that the 14 lecture sections and two breastfeeding observations will need approximately 35 hours of study. This includes using the resources within the lessons and completion of the quizzes.
• You will be given 16 weeks to complete the course once enrolled. Please ensure you are able to meet this deadline before purchasing the the course.
• Much of the course is self-marking and this should enable to you feel confident as you move through the course content.
• The expected outcome of this learning experience is that you will consolidate your knowledge around breastfeeding and understand why it is so valuable to families and communities. You will gain confidence to support other breastfeeding mothers in your community.
• The information within the course is evidence-based and the ABM aims to keep this information up to date.
• This course is suitable for those with a range of breastfeeding knowledge—from beginners to advanced—and is inclusive of differing ability.

Practical assignments include:

• Making a list of appropriate resources in your local area which will be useful to signpost the mothers you support.
• 2 observations of breastfeeding.

Course Structure

Unit 1 – Why is breastfeeding important?
Unit 2 – How breastfeeding works
Unit 3 – Early days of breastfeeding
Unit 4 – Night times
Unit 5 – Positioning and attachment

Breastfeeding Observation 1

Unit 6 – Breastfeeding challenges
Unit 7 – Drugs, medication and illness
Unit 8 – Starting solid foods
Unit 9 – Expressing breast milk
Unit 10 – Myth busting
Unit 11 – Communication skills
Unit 12 – Exploring Scenarios and appropriate referral
Unit 13 – Your role within your organisation or business
Unit 14 – The International Code
Unit 15 – Context of UK breastfeeding support

Breastfeeding Observation 2

Recommended and further reading list
Reflecting on this training course
Checklist and celebration
Course resources