A DROP-IN group in Upton-upon-Severn supporting new mums who are breastfeeding is celebrating securing funding to continue its services for another 12 months.

Baby Latte is run once a week at the Riverboats Children’s Centre, Price’s Lane, Upon-upon-Severn, by National Childcare Trust (NCT) counsellors offering practical support, information and encouragement to persevere with breastfeeding.

It is holding a celebration on Wednesday August 19 from 12 noon to 2pm with drinks and nibbles – visitors are asked to bring their own picnics if they want more to eat – to mark gaining more Awards for All Big Lottery funding. It has been awarded £6,500 to continue for another year.

The event is open to anyone, including current users, who have used the Upton service since it has been open, together with their children, dads and grannies. Mums have come from as far away of Malvern, Worcester and Ledbury, as well as villages like Kempsey, Welland, Castlemorton, Pendock, Longdon and Elderfield to use Upton’s Baby Latte.

The NCT initially set up the drop-in group in Malvern, where it has been operating for 10 years, as a place where women in the early days of motherhood could go once a week if they were having problems with breastfeeding and needed encouragement and support with feeding.

NCT counsellor Frances Thurlow said: “It is a safe place they can come and feed their babies and gain confidence and knowledge about caring for their babies. It is a place where they can create social networks and get peer support to persevere with breastfeeding.

“We give practical and emotional support. We are trained as counsellors and trained to listen to mothers and hear what they are saying. We have more time than health professionals and we do home visits too.”

The groups in Malvern and Upton are called Baby Latte because the first group was set up in the Lyttleton Rooms, in Malvern, opposite a cafe. The organisers wanted it to be an informal atmosphere like a cafe, while latte is the Italian for milk and used to describe a certain type of coffee with milk.

The Malvern group has relocated several times and is now based in the Evergreen Children’s Centre, Malvern Link and meets on a Thursday.

Riverboats Children’s Centre is run by Action for Children to provide early years support on behalf of Worcestershire County Council.

Frances added: “It is very good news we have funding for another year. It means we can reach more mothers. The aim is to increase the rates of breastfeeding. Britain has the lowest rates in Europe.

“There is a big drop off of breastfeeding in the first six weeks and for us it is often about getting women through the first six weeks. It tends to get easier after that.”

Figures for 2012 in Worcestershire show 75.6 per cent of new mums started breast feeding but by six weeks this dropped to 43 per cent for breastfeeding and bottle feeding.

Frances said Norway and other Scandinavian countries lead the way with breastfeeding. “They just have a more friendly breastfeeding culture. Part of what we are trying to do it normalise it here.”

If people would like to go along to the Baby Latte celebration in Upton next week, please contact Jayne at jayne.morgan@actionforchildren.org.uk or ring 01684 594806.