breastfeeding advice

Breastfeeding is the natural, physiologic way of feeding infants and young children, and human milk is the milk made specifically for human infants. Breastfeeding should be easy and trouble free for most mothers. A good start helps to ensure breastfeeding is a happy experience for both mother and baby.

by Anne Smith, IBCLC

Nearly all nursing mothers worry at one time or another about whether their babies are getting enough milk. Since we can't measure breastmilk intake the way we can formula intake, it is easy to be insecure about the adequacy of our milk supplies. The "perception" of insufficient breastmilk production is the most common reason mothers give for weaning or early introduction of solids or supplements. Although there is a very small percentage of women who can't produce enough milk no matter what they do, this is very rare.

Jonathan is now six weeks old. He was born 4 weeks premature and breastfeeding, at first, was challenging. He was just too tired to latch on and suck for very long. The first couple days at the hospital, we supplemented my colostrum with formula.

Much rhetoric that exists stating that a newborn instinctively knows how to eat. That's bull! While you are learning to nurse your baby, he's learning the process of nursing. You both will have a learning curve that will be roughest the first initial days and nights of nursing- but you both are still learning.

There are many reasons a baby might refuse to latch on. Often there is a combination of reasons. For example, a baby might latch on even with a tight frenulum if no other factors come into play, but if, for example, he is also given bottles early on...

Niesha, a young mother in Arizona, was nursing her three-week-old son in the baby department of a large discount store when the manager politely asked her to nurse in the bathroom because there were male customers who were their with their wives.

While my personal belief is that nothing in the world is more natural than breastfeeding, and therefore every nursing mother should feel comfortable pulling her shirt up or off and nursing anywhere at all, I understand that we live in a society where this just isn't possible.