Three of Broughty Ferry’s tiniest residents helped promote the benefits of breastfeeding after NHS Tayside failed to meet its breast-feeding target.
The Pearson triplets have all been fed exclusively with breast milk since they arrived eight weeks early at Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital.
But not every infant gets the same healthy start in life, as NHS Tayside’s latest figures for breastfeeding show.
The health authority failed to persuade a third of all mums to keep breastfeeding their newborns for the first few weeks.
A report just placed before health bosses states that five years ago NHS Tayside was given a target to increase the proportion of newborn babies exclusively breastfed at six to eight weeks from 26.6% in 2006 to 33.3% by the end of March this year.
Not only did the health authority fail to meet the target, but it didn’t rise above the 2006 performance and at times even dipped below that starting level.
But for the triplets’ mum Taryn, there was never any question that her little girls would be anything but breastfed.
Their big brother Rocco (10) was breast-fed for the first 13 months of his life. “Then he bit me,” said Taryn.
Her second son Connor (3) was breastfed until he was two years and three months old.
The girls arrived before their sucking reflex developed and were drip-fed Taryn’s breast milk through a tube until they were strong enough to latch on and feed normally.
Taryn said, “There are hurdles in the beginning but you get through it and you don’t stop. I can walk around and feed them now. It becomes easier. I feed two at a time at home.”
Triplets Isla, Erin and Rose spent their first four weeks in Ninewells’ neo-natal unit before going home to their big brothers.
Almost three months old now, they all weigh around three kilos, having doubled their birth weight.
Taryn has painted Rose’s tiny nail with red varnish, the only way she can tell her apart from her identical sister Isla. “It’s called Wonder Woman red,” said Taryn.
When the triplets visited the mother and baby clinic at Ninewells, midwifery team leader Linda Arnott said, “The health benefits of breastfeeding are immense. Look how well these babies have come on.”
She said that breast milk, which is full of nutrients and antibodies, protects babies from problems such as necrotising enterocolitis, a common complication in premature babies.
“They were all a lower birth weight than a singleton born at the same gestation so were at an increased risk,” said Linda. “The fact Taryn was expressing milk until they could be put to the breast was fantastic.”
Taryn said she plans to volunteer as a breastfeeding buddy at her local medical practice when she finishes feeding the triplets.
One thing she won’t be doing is increasing her family. “I am not having any more,” she said. “We are finished.”