When starting out with breastfeeding, mothers are often advised to use nipple shields. Maybe the baby does not seem to be able to latch on well, the mother is in pain, or someone simply considers that the mother’s nipple might “not be good enough” for breastfeeding. There may come a time when you get tired of them and you wan’t to get rid of nipple shields, because they are not practical: you have to make sure they stay in place,…
Baby-led weaning (BLW) is an approach to initiating complementary feeding and introducing solids to babies. In this method, children feed themselves with their own hands and are not spoon-fed mashed or pureed baby food. This method encourages the infant to be the active individual in their feeding journey and not a passive receptor of food, as happens with traditional spoon feeding. This way, infants self-regulate, favoring perceptive feeding based on the child’s hunger and satiety signals. The concept of Baby-Led…
When it comes to breastfeeding, much has been written and said about the benefits of breastfeeding for the health of mothers and babies, and they are repeated over and over again. However, there is a glaring lack of research on pain care during breastfeeding, difficulties with low milk supply, how to accompany weaning, or how to care for breastfeeding when it is not satisfying, among others. We know that the field of scientific knowledge about women’s health is limited. Often,…
Author: Marta Miarons, pediatric physiotherapist Babywearing, such as with slings and baby carriers, is a fantastic tool for many families in the first months or years of a baby’s life. Benefits of babywearing Carrying allows babies to remain in contact with their adults and feel safe and protected. It helps them regulate their body temperature, heart rate, and respiration. In the first weeks of life, it facilitates longer skin-to-skin contact and helps the adult to detect and anticipate the baby’s…
“It all begins at the end of the feed. My nipple turns white and starts hurting. It hurts a lot and I don’t know what it is. Then, when I am in the shower or go outside and it is cold, the pain comes back again. What can it be?“ What this mother is describing is called nipple ischemia, which is a lack of blood supply that can cause a lot of pain. Ischemia can occur for many different reasons,…
How do you know if your newborn is breastfeeding well? And how do you know if exclusive breastfeeding is working? Mothers only learn how to breastfeed once they have their baby in their arms. Although we think breastfeeding is an instinct, in reality, it is not. Babies, however, do know instinctively how to breastfeed. Mothers can build their knowledge and learn it by watching other mothers breastfeeding, which is why finding a breastfeeding support group or joining other breastfeeding mothers…
When providing breastfeeding care after a cesarean section, healthcare professionals have to take into account a series of factors that have an impact on lactation. It is known that women who give birth by C-section have lower breastfeeding rates at discharge and weeks thereafter than those who have had a vaginal birth. In addition, certain myths about cesarean births can make breastfeeding even more difficult. Evidence suggests that the vast majority of difficulties with breastfeeding after a C-section are due…
When you start thinking about how to warm up pumped breast milk, you may have questions, especially the first few times you do it. But breast milk does not require much different handling than any other food. And heating breast milk is not very different from heating any other products. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that human milk is a living liquid, and therefore, mishandling it can cause the protective (living) cells to get lost….
“Hi, I’m going to have another baby soon; I’m now 34 weeks. I would like to ask you about what happened to me when I had my first baby because nobody knew what it was… My baby was breastfeeding just after the birth. Then, the midwife told me that at the end of the feed, I should put some colostrum on my nipple. And when I did, I realized that my colostrum was not yellow; it was brown; I was…
Biologist and IBCLC Catherine Watson Genna first proposed power pumping extraction techniques as effective methods for achieving a rapid increase in breast milk supply. These techniques are used to achieve, within 48 hours, an increase in milk production that allows providing a rapid response in case of emergency, such as a sick baby, premature babies, and so on, and also in the case of having to separate from the baby with no breast milk reserves or in the case of…