Starting A Successful Breastfeeding Journey & How to Advocate For Yourself If Birthing In A Hospital

It is important to decide on breastfeeding long before baby arrives in order to prepare yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially for this decision. As soon as baby is born, your goal should be to place the baby on your chest within 30 minutes after delivery (may have to be more if there was a cesarean birth) to jumpstart your breastfeeding journey. This helps establish the norm, frequency, and importance of breastfeeding right away!

Tips Before You Get to the Hospital

There are a number of things you can do before getting to the hospital to sow the seeds for your breastfeeding journey. It will be super important to communicate with your doctor and nurses about your desire to breastfeed as soon as you decide. Having this understanding established before the rush of labor and delivery will feel helpful to feeling supported by hospital staff in your journey. This is something to seek out as it is common for hospital staff to try and push formula, bottle feeding, and even pacifiers within those first pivotal days. These seemingly harmful interventions can inhibit the progress of breastfeeding. Look for a free breastfeeding class in your area. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children or WIC offices are one place that offers such, but there may be other organizations that also offer free breastfeeding classes where you are at. It is also helpful to start to look into herbs that you’ll feel comfortable drinking everyday to help nourish your hard working body while breastfeeding. You can start this during pregnancy to normalize the routine as long as the herbs are known to be safe for pregnancy. Red raspberry is a good example of an herb that you can start drinking daily. Put up a list of milk stimulating foods to embrace on your fridge, to get used to seeing what’s on the list in order to make grocery shopping easier for whoever’s in charge during the postpartum period. Check out a helpful list I created here.

Tips During Your Hospital Stay

Practice skin to skin as soon as the baby is born- ideally within 30 minutes after birth the baby should be placed naked on your chest. This is calming for mom and baby, helps regulate baby’s temperature, heart rate, and breathing, and is an important opportunity for bonding. When placed on the chest immediately after birth, the baby can find its way to the nipple through its primal instincts. This can create a positive and uplifting start to the breastfeeding journey as mom and baby quickly learn to help each other.

Room in with your baby. This will help you to learn your newborn’s hunger cues and be able to feed on demand. The mother-baby bond is so important to nurture for the baby’s developing nervous system that you should really take the baby everywhere with you for at least the first 40 days. Ideally there will be no separation especially since newborns should go about a maximum of 3-4 hours between feedings. It is super common for newborns to only go 20 minutes before showing signs of wanting to breastfeed again.

Feed on demand! Don’t look at the clock. Whenever your baby shows hunger signs, it’s time to pull out the boob. In fact, the more you put baby on the boob, the more your body is signaled to make more milk in general. By the time your baby is crying, they are already past hungry and are in a little bit of distress. This can make it harder for them to latch. Some signs your baby is hungry include moving their fist towards their mouth, looking around for the breast, increased alertness and movement, sucking on their hands or smacking their lips, and opening and closing their mouth.

Try different feeding positions while laying or sitting up in bed until you find what works for you. You can try laying on your side while baby is laying comfortably right next to you on the bed. You can try holding your baby under the arm, similar to holding a football while running. You can put baby on top of your chest as you lay down on your back. Find what feels good!

Remember, only give breastmilk! That’s all your baby needs. When babies are born, their stomach is the size of a marble, so they really don’t need much to feel full. Be weary of hospital staff recommending that you supplement the breastmilk with formula as more often than not it will be unnecessary. It will be extremely helpful to learn how to hand express as it stimulates milk production & can be done on the spot, equipment free, anywhere. Spoon feed or use a cup to feed breastmilk if baby needs extra. Using a bottle or pacifier in the first few weeks will open up the door for nipple confusion and preference of the bottle. Bottles are much easier for the baby as they don’t have to work their mouth muscles as much in order to get a lot of milk. This sounds enticing, but babies who breastfeed on the boob develop linguistic skills faster because of having to work their muscles more.

Tips For When You Get Home

When you get home from the hospital you need to prioritize rest, recovery, and bonding with your baby. As mentioned earlier, you should spend the next 40 days with baby, taking it very easy and providing your body with hearty, fulfilling meals. It is no way the right time to try and start getting your “pre baby” body back. Your body needs the calories for breastfeeding anyway. Some exercises can even set your recovery back just by doing them during this time. Your abdominal wall and pelvic floor need time to heal before putting your body through strenuous workouts. Continue to room in with baby or at least keep the baby within hearing range in order to continue breastfeeding on demand.

Plan for your doctor or midwife to check on the baby within 48 hrs from birth to make sure everything is going smoothly. If you feel like there is an emergency, call right away. If breastfeeding is painful, call a lactation expert. It may be uncomfortable but if it is painful there may be opportunities to help ease your pain. A good rule of thumb to go by to ensure your baby is eating enough is that they should have as many wet diapers as they are days old throughout the first week. After that they should have at least 6 wet diapers a day.

Don’t forget to check out my other blogs and resources for more information on breastfeeding and everything pregnancy related!