When Ivy was born she had a tongue tie which went undiagnosed for three weeks, which meant that breastfeeding was excruciating for me, and that she couldn’t get the milk that she needed, leading to slow weight gain, dehydration and lots and lots of tears on both of our parts. As Jonathan lives with multiple allergies we knew that exclusive feeding with breastmilk was the best thing for her and it was agonising not being able to do this with my milk alone in the early weeks and months, as my supply was also affected by the feeding issues. We had the most incredible support from the Hearts Milk Bank who were able to provide donor milk (and emotional support!) which allowed us to bridge the gap while I worked for four months on building my supply back up. We reached our goal of exclusively breastfeeding Ivy for 6 months and are eternally grateful to them for the support they gave us and for the work they do to keep babies and mums thriving in much more challenging situations than ours!! 

We have taken on the challenge of running the Royal Parks Half Marathon this October in order to raise funds for Hearts Milk Bank/The Human Milk Foundation. No, it won’t be our first half marathon each, however it will be my longest post-partum run, and the first running challenge we undertake while juggling training with looking after an 8 month old - so we don’t expect PBs but we are looking forward to getting back to training and to raising money for this wonderful charity! Read on to learn more about their work...

The Human Milk Foundation is a new charity, established to fund research and education into human milk science, and to help parents access donor milk for their babies. Donor milk has until now been rationed to the sickest babies, but could help more to thrive.We will enable parents to access safe donor milk, if mum needs time and support to establish her supply or is unable to breastfeed for medical or practical reasons, or if baby is unwell. We have already helped mums with cancer, HIV and depression. Please help us to help more.