1st August 2025
The National Breastfeeding Helpline: 24-hour service extended PLUS overnight social media messaging
World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year in the first week of August, championed by WHO, UNICEF, Ministries of Health, and civil society partners around the world. In celebration of Breastfeeding Week, we are delighted to share this Voices blog by Hester Schofield – National Breastfeeding Helpline Manager for The Breastfeeding Network.
We welcomed the recent news that the National Breastfeeding 24-hour service helpline has been funded by the government for an additional year. Hester’s blog highlights how this helpline is a useful tool for health visiting teams across the country who are supporting women, babies, children and their families with their infant feeding journeys.
Hester Schofield, National Breastfeeding Helpline Manager, The Breastfeeding Network
The National Breastfeeding Helpline Offer
The National Breastfeeding Helpline has been run through a partnership between The Breastfeeding Network and the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers since its development in 2008. We have an amazing team of volunteer and staff peer supporters offering evidence based, friendly, non-judgemental support and information aiming to enable women and families to make the choice that is right for them around infant feeding.
Parents can call us anytime on 0300 100 0212
The Helpline is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care and Scottish Government with support of the Welsh Government. As part of the Start for Life Programme, we were asked to pilot a 24-hour service: offering breastfeeding peer support via the phone overnight. We are really excited that the pilot project was a success, and we have been funded for a further year with additional capacity so that we can help more families and start offering support via social media, as well as over the phone.
Caller feedback
As part of the pilot project, we have had an independent evaluation of the helpline. Some of the most frequent topics our callers want to talk through are:
- Establishing breastfeeding
- Positioning and attachment
- Milk supply
- Normal baby behaviour
We support callers antenatally through to weaning from the breast at any age, including evidence-based information on starting solids, expressing, mixed feeding and safe bottle preparation.
We have been blown away by feedback from callers using the service. Thousands of people use our services each year and the satisfaction scores across the different parts of the service (nighttime, daytime phone, social media, webchat, and our Drugs in Breastmilk Information Service) were really high across the board, with a fantastic 99% of callers being satisfied with the support they received (with 87% extremely satisfied)!
“The response I received took into account everything I said, gave trustworthy links to more information and made me feel empowered to make a decision on my own, learning a few things in the process.” (Social Media Caller)
We also saw that callers felt more confident continuing breastfeeding where this was their goal, and felt listened to and validated.
The high-quality peer support on the National Breastfeeding Helpline complements the work of health visitors and health visiting practitioners and can ease the pressure on the NHS by responding early, giving much-needed time and space, with an emphasis on listening, reassuring and building confidence. This enables parents to make feeding decisions that are right for them.
Support during the night: learning over the year
We have seen the use of the Helpline during the night increase throughout the pilot, showing us that there was an appetite to be able to call during the nighttime hours.
90% of callers told us it was extremely helpful they could call during the night.
“I was very stressed and worried at the time of contacting. It was super helpful to have that support available immediately and not have to wait until the morning. The expert I spoke to validated my feelings, made sure she understood my issues, and made sure I felt everything was discussed/resolved before we moved on. This is such a brilliant and helpful service. The 24/7 availability is brilliant.” (NBH@Night Caller)
During the night, the age of the baby is younger, on average. The call topics seen during the night also reflect this, with the top topic being establishing breastfeeding.
Signpost to the National Breastfeeding Helpline
Up to 32% of callers to the National Breastfeeding Helpline found out about the service from a Healthcare Professional. We hope it is a really helpful tool for health visitors and health visiting practitioners: a trusted place that the families you support can reach out to, especially at nighttime when health visiting services are not available.
Health visiting teams can signpost to the National Breastfeeding Helpline 24/7 on 0300 100 0212 and via our social media services via Facebook and Instagram
If there is anything you’d like to ask or for free downloadable resources please get in touch: [email protected]
Or for free marketing materials, visit The Breastfeeding Network where you can order posters, leaflets and stickers.
