Breastmilk gives your baby tailor-made nutrients designed just for them! Many Irish mums-to-be have the intention of breastfeeding, however, at present only 13% of babies are breastfed past 6 months of age. There are a number of factors which may be contributing to this;
- Perception that not enough milk is being made:
Some mothers believe that they are not producing enough milk for their babies, however this is almost never the case. By draining the breasts more frequently, your body will naturally produce more milk. For those breastfeeding or expressing breastmilk, the golden rule is to feed or pump 8 or more in 24! This means draining the breasts 8 times every 24 hours.
By adding an extra expression session at night your body will begin to increase the milk supply due to the additional drainage of the breasts. Night time is the optimal time due to the increased levels of oxytocin.
Discomfort during feeding:
Breastfeeding is a taught skill, babies need to learn how to latch to the breast correctly, luckily for Irish mums, we have great midwives and lactation consultants at hand in each Irish maternity hospital. However some babies have poor latch for reasons such as tongue tie etc. Many mums will abandon their breastfeeding journey at this point assuming that the baby will never feed a the breast.
This is not the case and there are many different options for mums to encourage their
