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“My birth instructor said this…: The breast is like a muscle you haven’t used yet. ‘Remember taking up a new sport?’ she asked… ‘Remember how much the new set of muscles you used surprised you by aching so much?’ Well, she said, that’s what it’s like to use your breasts, for the very first time, for the purpose they have been waiting all your life.” By Julia Glass
Everyone everywhere advises to always breastfeed your child. It keeps both mother and child healthy and free from all disease to an extent this fact is genuine. The Myth related to breastfeeding differs and grows from one mother to another as per their motherhood experiences and challenges. These Myths spreads amongst new mothers like fire. We need to understand that breastfeeding mothers are undergoing a lot of pressure as it’s directly related to their babies’ growth and wellness. We should help anxious new mothers and not frighten them with so many do’s and don’ts.
The fact is “Bottles fill her stomach, but breastfeeding fills her soul.”
Motherhood comes with lots of responsibilities and also a lot of changes in mother’s body, a mother are going through a lot of physical and hormonal changes which makes her little sensitive towards everything. To cope up with so many changes and also with the physical appearance of her breasts which were never supposed to be used as a model to be demonstrated by lactation expert, my mother, and aunts to guide her always to breastfeed properly in a proper position so that the babies are not smothered.
New mothers are going through different experiences which are very first for them so they need guidance and care. Guidance cannot be based only on the basis of one mother experience it should be more generic covering at least 50% of women going through similar situations and medical conditions.
Coming to changes in new mother the breast engorgement and breast fullness are two different things. So painful, swollen, hot breasts are the result of engorgement which happens because of infrequent feeding and the breast overfill so look for the signs of engorgement as it is not normal.
We as mothers are always worried about the best quality food and nutrients to be available for our kids and when they are babies we want them to eat healthy and nutritious food. To produce good quality milk there are many food items which help in regular supply of milk for the babies sounds hilarious but to an extent and for old time sake, yes the fact is few good food habits can increase the supply of milk. With the quality, we also worry about the continuous supply of milk but leaking mothers is not the parameter to judge that new mothers are making enough milk or not. If your child is passing stool one time in a day then also things are positive and it means that mother is producing enough milk for the baby to digest and excrete.
The fact is more you pump and more milk will be produced, it follows the simple logic of demand and supplies. New mothers feed can get more supply of milk for the baby through healthy food eating habits and complete diet.
Breast milk doesn’t contain enough mineral salt so formula milk can be introduced to meet the needs of the baby. My motherhood experience with two daughters, breastfeeding the first daughter till she was 2.5 yr old with a combination of formula milk which helped her to gain immunity because of supplements in formula milk. She is more healthy and her growth is also faster than my younger one to whom I only breastfeed and she was never on formula milk. She is fragile and her growth is normal. So with my experience, I realized the formula milk was not bad for my daughters in case you are not able to breastfeed.
Anxious mothers, not just new mothers, as mothers are always worried about their child growth and development but infant weight gain initially decides the well being of the baby whether the baby is growing and all his organs are working fine. Not necessary that the weight gain will happen adequately. Inadequate weight gain is common unless there are other signs of illness.
Breastfeeding is important both for mother and child; it comes with some amount of pain, patience, and pumping.
“Whoever said ‘there’s no use crying over spilled milk’ obviously never pumped six ounces and accidentally spilled it.”
