Expectant moms have a plethora of items that they worry about. For me, breastfeeding was at the top of the list. I think the reason I worried so much about it was it was really important to me that I was successful in this area. I had obviously heard the mantra, "Breast is best," by many, but more than the health benefits, I wanted the bonding experience.
Now before I get going too much more into this, I know that there are probably some moms reading this who couldn't or chose not to breastfeed. This article is not meant to take anything away from your choice as a mother, but merely sharing my experience and then some facts about breastfeeding. There is too much "mom shaming" going on and I think it's sad and unfortunate. Every parent deserves the right to raise their child the way they deem best and it's not anyone's place to poo all over it.
In preparation to breastfeed my baby, I made sure to do a fair amount of reading up on the subject. I also had two meetings with a lactation consultant, and attended a breastfeeding class. When Baby Jo was born they placed her on my chest for skin to skin contact and it wasn't long after she was placed there that she began to do what is called "the breast crawl". I was astonished as I watched her wriggle her way towards my breast to feed. If you have never heard or seen this I highly encourage you to google it. It's amazing watching an infant only minutes old use their sense of smell to guide them to the breast to feed. She made her way there and then I just helped her lift her head a bit to latch on.
Now if there was something that I learned and knew was REALLY important about breastfeeding is the latch. I was told repeatedly that a proper latch, while might be uncomfortable at first, is NOT painful, and therefore you should be able to easily distinguish a good from a bad latch. The other way to decipher if you have a good or bad latch, is to look to see how much of the nipple the baby has in their mouth. If they only have the nipple, that is not good. What you want is for the baby to have a fair amount of areola in their mouth as well, and then their lips should be flared out on top of the breast (like duck lips!).
When Jo first latched I wasn't sure if she was on correctly or not but she seemed to be getting milk and it wasn't painful so I let her continue. She unlatched and so I moved her to the other breast, where I got a good, firsthand experience of a bad latch. Umm yeah, very painful! So I was relieved to find that I could easily tell the difference between a good and bad latch. To break a bad latch, you insert your pinkie finger into the corner of the baby's mouth (which breaks the suction), then sweep across, moving the nipple out.
The first couple of days my nipples were sore and you could see some bruising on the tip of the nipples. But after about a week they adapt and it doesn't get nearly as sore. I found that nipple balm was very helpful in soothing them and kept them from cracking or drying out.
My top three tips for successful breastfeeding are: drink lots of water, pump often, make sure the baby latches well. If you do these three things, your milk supply should stay high and breastfeeding should be enjoyable and the bonding experience it was meant to be.
"Good for baby AND mama" article from Parents.com
The bonding and nutritional benefits were on the top of my list as to why I wanted to breastfeed, but when I did research on other benefits I was floored as to how many there were! The link above will connect you to parents.com and a very in depth article on benefits of breastfeeding for mama and baby.
A few of my favorite benefits for baby are protecting against allergies and autoimmune diseases, causes less diarrhea, indigestion, and gas, and protects against many diseases that could be developed later on in life. A few benefits for mama that I was looking forward to was that breastfeeding helps shrink the uterus back to its' usual size and helps protect against postpartum hemorrhages, and it lowers your chances for certain cancers and osteoporosis.
One last thing to cover: ENGORGEMENT. Owwwwwww... So I experienced this when my milk fully came in 3-5 days after giving birth. This is fairly common when your milk comes in for the first time and I found that the best way to relieve this was to pump. Unfortunately when your breasts are engorged it is harder for baby to feed (the breasts are so full that latching properly is difficult) so I found that if I could feed Jo what she needed, and then pumped right afterwards emptied my breasts and relieved the pain that comes with engorgement. You'll know if your breasts are engorged if they are painful to the touch and if they almost feel hard.
Overall my experience with breastfeeding has been incredible and I am very happy that I am able to do so. Are you a new mom navigating the waters like I am? Reach out to me! I would love to have other new moms to bond with and to bounce ideas off of.
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