I want to talk to you about my wife's breasts. It's OK – I have her permission; we've agreed it's in the public interest. Two weeks ago, our second child was born. A boy: Toby Oliver Extence. He's half asleep on my knee as I write this. It's 4.30am and my wife has just gone to bed, having managed zero hours of sleep so far tonight, and perhaps half a dozen over the past three days. I've been doing slightly better, due to the fact that our son is being exclusively breastfed, and there's only so much I can do to help out. Like most newborns, Toby seems to have a distinct preference for feeding at night. Ravenous and insatiable are the two adjectives that spring to mind.

In case you missed it, breastfeeding is back in the news this week. A recent study of 14,000 women in the south-west of England has concluded that breastfeeding can halve the risk of postnatal depression. Except that isn't quite the full picture. The same study also found that the group of women most at risk from postnatal depression was those who wished to breastfeed but were unable to. They, in fact, were more than twice as likely than the average woman to suffer from postnatal depression.

The BBC reported this story under the optimistic banner "Breastfeeding cuts depression risk", but it was the bit that didn't make the headline that really held my attention. In part, I'm sure this is because my wife and I are now rediscovering what we learned two years ago with our daughter: breastfeeding may be natural, but that doesn't mean it's easy. It's bloody hard work – sometimes literally.

However, there's a second reason that this story struck a chord with me, and this is to do with my mum's first experience of childbirth, 34 years ago.

I come from a family of four, and my mum breastfed all of us, with the exception of my older sister, who was bottle fed from day one. This wasn't my mum's choice; it was because of a series of cockups at the hospital. Her labour lasted about 24 hours, during which time a junior doctor gave her far too much pethidine – an opiate – particularly in the later stages of labour. As a result, my sister came out as limp as a dishcloth, and with no discernible suck reflex. Not that my mother would have been capable of feeding her at that point anyway; she was also semi-comatose. The hospital staff then decided that the best thing to do would be to get my newborn sister started on formula milk as soon as possible, and things continued to go downhill from there. Breastfeeding was never established, and my mum was soon advised that sticking with the formula was the safer, better option. She wasn't producing enough breast milk, anyway.

My mother didn't suffer with postnatal depression – or not at a level that was ever diagnosed – but she was deeply affected by what happened to her. She was one of those women who desperately wanted to breastfeed but was unable to, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to describe her experience as traumatic. She still feels upset and angry about it to this day.

Of course, it's hard to imagine that same scenario replaying in an NHS hospital now; more likely, the staff would go to the other extreme: an emergency breast pump would be brought into the delivery room and attached to the new mother with all possible haste, whether she was conscious or not. I'm joking, of course – but the exaggeration isn't as great as you might think. My daughter was born by emergency caesarean, six weeks premature, and within 24 hours the nurses had my wife and I feeding her hand-expressed breast milk via a tube and syringe (just as nature intended).

The point is that, with more and more research, attitudes to the importance of breast milk have changed, especially among healthcare professionals. And yet problems persist. It's still possible to get very, very bad advice on breastfeeding in an NHS hospital. I'll give you another example from personal experience. There's no obvious way to lead into this anecdote, so I'll just come out with it: a nurse on one of the postnatal wards in our local hospital told my wife that her (my wife's) nipples might be "too flat" to breastfeed. I was present when it happened. We decided to get a second opinion. "Rubbish! Utter rubbish!" the second nurse told us, having looked at my wife's nipples for about half a second.

I'm willing to concede that this is probably an extreme example – I really hope it is, anyway. But, at the same time, I doubt that our experience is completely unique. It's not even a one-off for us; we've had bad advice on breastfeeding from more than one healthcare professional. We've also had lots of very good advice, particularly from our community midwives. All this leaves me thinking that the quality of support for breastfeeding mums can be a bit of a lottery.

Of course, it's perfectly clear that the policymakers in the NHS understand the need to provide clear and consistent advice on breastfeeding. But there are problems here as well. It's all too easy for clear and consistent to become prescriptive and dogmatic – not to mention unrealistic.

I have in front of me the NHS pamphlet on breastfeeding ("off to the best start" – no capitals), which is full of glossy photos of mothers, all in various states of euphoria, feeding their newborns. OK, I understand the intention here: we want to present a positive and encouraging image of breastfeeding; no need to include close-ups of open sores and bleeding nipples. But is it helpful to go so far the other way? In all likelihood, there are going to be plenty of times when breastfeeding does not feel like heaven on earth. It's not going to feel that way when you haven't slept for three days, or when your baby is going through a growth spurt and attempts to feed non-stop for 12 hours. Isn't it important to be clear on these points as well, so that women who struggle with breastfeeding don't immediately feel as if there's something wrong with them, or as if they've failed?

As anyone who has seen the UK statistics on breastfeeding can attest, the big problem isn't that new mothers don't want to breastfeed. Most do; the message that breast is best has been received loud and clear. But it's only a minority (around a third) who make it through the first six months (as recommended by the NHS), let alone beyond. For many, I'm sure that general life must start to get in the way pretty quickly; if you have to go back to work after three months of maternity leave, this is going to make breastfeeding problematic. But there may also be plenty of new mothers for whom there is a significant gap between expectation and experience when it comes to breastfeeding. And often the most helpful thing, when it's half four in the morning and you just want the torment to end, is to know that you're not alone. And it does – eventually – get easier.