Maura Lavery: clinical midwife specialist in breastfeeding at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin
I start my working day at 8 a.m. by checking emails and my diary to see if there are any mothers on the wards I need to follow up on from the previous day.
On days when my job-sharing colleague, Aisling Wilson, and I are working together, we divide up the duties of the day.
I spend most of the morning seeing these women and other mothers (as requested by ward sisters) who need help with breastfeeding.
Although breastfeeding is the natural way to feed your baby, it is a learned art and some babies have problems latching on, are sleepy or simply take a while to come round to feeding after birth.
The mothers themselves may suffer from engorged breasts or have sore or inverted nipples. We don't take over the whole care of breastfeeding mothers but assist them and act as advisers to the staff.
Mothers with babies in the intensive care unit may also need help expressing breastmilk by hand or by pump. I would also give advice on storing and transporting breastmilk.
We even have had some mothers who have donated breastmilk to the milk bank in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh.
In the afternoon, I do more office-based work, for instance, updating or devising new policies as part of our commitment to the WHO/UNICEF Baby Friendly Hospital initiative.
One aspect of the initiative we are working towards at present is to encourage skin-to-skin contact between all mothers and their babies within the first half hour after birth.
The Rotunda is also the centre for the 18-hour WHO/UNICEF breastfeeding course in the Northern Area Health Board so I may have to do some preparation work for one of these courses which are attended by hospital midwives and doctors and public health nurses and GP practice nurses.
We also run in-service breastfeeding information training.
I also see mothers who return to the out-patients department with feeding problems or who have developed mastitis.
Some breastfeeding mothers attending the paediatric outpatients with babies with slow or no weight gain may also need my help.
On Friday mornings, we run a breastfeeding support group in the nurses residence for mothers and their babies.
On other days, I may have to take three or four calls from breastfeeding mothers who contact our phone counselling service (tel: 01 8730700, Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.)
The most satisfying part of my job is helping mothers to successfully breastfeed and it's good to see that there is an increase in the number of mothers who initiate breastfeeding - from 32 per cent in 1994 to 53 per cent in 2003.
I think overall there is a more co-ordinated approach to breastfeeding and people are beginning to see the benefits to children and mothers' health and therefore to the nation as a whole. My working day ends at 4.30 p.m.
(Interview by Sylvia Thompson)