Almost two in three women sought help to increase their milk supply or to re-start breastfeeding in a bid to better protect their child this year, new Australian Breastfeeding Australia research shows. Almost two in five women cited stress and anxiety was hindering their milk supply.

Ms Russell, a Ballarat Health Services clinical midwife consultant, said women in this region were showing these same trends but in general, these were similar concerns from women before the pandemic only with compounded anxieties of isolation.

At the same time, Ms Russell said less visitors or needs to rush about had Ballarat women finding breastfeeding easier and more comfortable in the comfort of home, often in the same chair and with partners home more often.

The challenge was in getting the right help when women needed it.

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Ms Russell said as people were becoming more comfortable moving about, women were starting to come back for face-to-face consultations.

Ballarat's lactation specialists, who work with women across the region, had to pivot to phone and telehealth consults, like most of the health industry this year.

Ms Russell said it was a steep learning curve for a job based on relationships and in-person support. But there were some good elements to consider going forward.

"When it worked - technology was not always reliable, especially for a lot of women out of town - it often worked really well because women were at home in their own environment and chair," Ms Russell said.

"A lot of women found phone calls really useful because they could quite easily pick up the phone and chat to someone every few days without having to pack everything to bring children into the clinic...but seeing a woman and seeing a baby, you could tell so much more about what was happening on the phone and particularly to check if the baby was positioned correctly and attached."

Ballarat lactation specialists also became a general sounding board for other concerns mothers might have either about their baby or themselves.

Ms Russell said this was important and really forced the team to think bigger. So much of their work was also done incidentally in the hospital in supporting colleagues or casual check-ins with mums in places like the special care nursery.

Although staff and mums could call the team anytime, Ms Russell was concerned how much incidental support had been lost.

The ABA has also stepped up is call for the implementation and funding of a national breastfeeding strategy in a bid to have 40 per cent of Australian babies fully breastfed until six months of age by 2022. At the moment, the national average is 15 per cent of babies, despite 97 per cent of women starting to breastfeed.

To reach this target, the ABA is calling for greater support in helping women reach their breastfeeding goals.

Ms Russell said women in Ballarat had tended to keep breastfeeding longer during the pandemic. She said this was largely due to the optimal health benefits for mums and bubs and because there were less external barriers - both pandemic by-products.