Knitted breasts

Want something quick and easy to knit and yet extremely useful?  

Then look no further. Health workers who explain breastfeeding technique to expectant mothers are looking for knitters to knit up woolly breasts to use as teaching aides. Plastic breasts are expensive and have to be imported from Australia. The Leeds Primary Care Trust if offering to make a donation to the charity of your choice, if you knit up some woolly breasts. 

New mothers who experience difficulty in breast feeding their new babies, often attend these classes in tears and yet will leave with smiles all over their faces.Community midwifes use these breast to demonstrate milk expressing techniques.Several primary care trusts have launched appeals for knitters to make up knitted breasts in a variety of shapes and sizes - just like normal women! 

Why not knit up some thing amusing, or knit the breasts you always dreamed of!  Download a free knitted breast pattern, as approved by the Lactation Consultants Association of Great Britain

I was able to knit up some sample breasts for my local Primary Care Trust in Huddersfield, for the Huddersfield Birth Centre which celebrated its first anniversary on Friday 20 March 2009.  

Many thanks to Gina and her team at the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary at the Birth Centre, for making us welcome and best wishes to the team and all mothers using the fabulous new facilities.

More knitted breasts are needed, so that each of the communit midwives can have one each, to take on their rounds. If you are interested in helping,  please send them to Serenity Knitting ( see Contact Us for address) and we will forward them on for you. 

One particular request was to make the areola ( the more pigmented skin around the nipple) slightly larger than the pattern suggests, so when you get to the first or second decrease, switch to darker wool.

So have a go, they are very quick and easy to make and are an endless source of laughter when you are making them. If you prefer, you can get in touch with your own local Primary HealthCare Trust, I'm sure they would love to hear from you.