WOMEN & LACTATION

1. While you wait for your baby during pregnancy, build your ‘Tribe’ and after birth find your ‘Tribe’. A tribe of people amongst your care givers, family, friends and the online support groups who acknowledge and support your choice to breastfeed your baby are essential for your journey as a breastfeeding mother.

2. Plan and work towards a gentle and supported birth. Your experience of labor and birth can have a profound direct impact on the success of your breastfeeding. Choosing a midwife/birth doula and a healthcare provider who is supportive of your choice of gentle birth in an a birthing environment such as home or a hospital which is certified by UNICEF/WHO initiative Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) is an essential step towards avoiding most of the birth interventions —potential causes for breastfeeding problems including inability to latch, low milk supply, post-partum depression and sore nipples.

3. Never miss the Golden First Hour to feed your baby after birth. What’s crucial about the first hour of baby’s life at the breast is baby’s natural hard wired reflexes to latch and feed. Plenty of skin to skin close contact between you and your baby will allow for the body regulation of milk making and bonding hormones. Practice Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) after birth until you leave the hospital even if you baby isn’t premature. You may well be bidding goodbye to the common experience of breast engorgement at all. KMC promotes natural cycles of feeding & sleeping.

4. Pain is never normal in breastfeeding. If you are experiencing pain seek professional help from your Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). Breastfeeding should be enjoyable and pain is a sign of communication that something not going on.

5. Follow your instincts when you feel in your gut that something isn’t ok about breastfeeding your baby. Smooth Breastfeeding experience is an early health radar of a developing baby.

6. Often the milk supply issue isn’t the cause but just a symptom of the underlying factors that are not diagnosed well. If you are ever concerned consult your lactation consultant.

7. You will be thankful to know breastfeeding isn’t about being stuck at home only feeding but about experiencing the joy of being liberated from carrying loads of feeding supplies and finding your life with your baby.

8. Make the most of maternity leave if you are a working mother. Establishing a good rhythm of early weeks of breastfeeding can go a long way to continued feeding even when you return back to work.

Published in FMC (First Moms Club) as "Today we have FMC Mommy Effath Yasmin giving us some useful tips on Lactation. She is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, a Certified Lactation Educator, an accredited Le Leche League Leader and a Biodynamic Craniosacral practitioner. She is the Director of Nourish & Nurture an outreach for Clinical Lactation Care to pregnant and nursing mothers and craniosacral biodynamic treatment." https://www.facebook.com/firstmomsclub/posts/1310234649059299:0

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