Mums who have gained life-changing support to care for their babies have spoken at their sadness at the closure of the Northampton Baby Cafe.
The cafe runs an informal support service for mums who have problems breastfeeding, meaning their baby risks losing out on a vital long-term boost to his or her health.
But community interest company Baby Ways, which runs the service from Wellington Street, ran out of funding and then failed to win the NHS contract for overall breastfeeding support in Northamptonshire.
The last session was held this morning and mums said that, although a similar service will begin elsewhere in the town sometime in May, the Northampton Baby Cafe cannot be replaced.
Briony Askew, a mum and member of the Northampton Breastfeeding Alliance group, which successfully campaigned to extend the funding for a year in 2012, said: “The two workers here have 16 years of experience behind them and that has not been given any value by the NHS.
“This is the perfect setting for women and their babies with an already established reputation. If it’s not broken then why try to fix it?”
The new NHS breastfeeding contract, which was won by NHS Northamptonshire Healthcare, will include a home visiting service for complex problems, extra training of all health visitors and targeted work to reach women where there is low rates of breastfeeding or high drop-off rates.
Northamptonshire Healthcare is unable at the moment to give details of the service that it says will replace the baby cafe because of the purdah period covering the upcoming Northamptonshire County Council elections. That is because the council commissions the breastfeeding service and the current administration could be seen to gain an advantage from any publicity.
However the NHS trust has in the past said the contract will provide “breastfeeding peer support groups within the community offering support and social opportunities to mothers, including a central group in Northampton.”