Breastfeeding - Starting Out Right

Breastfeeding is the natural and normal way of feeding infants and young children, and human milk is the milk made specifically for human infants. Starting out right helps to ensure breastfeeding is a pleasant experience for both you and your baby. Breastfeeding should be easy and trouble free for most mothers.

The vast majority of mothers are perfectly capable of breastfeeding their babies exclusively for about six months. In fact, most mothers should be able to produce more than enough milk. Unfortunately, outdated hospital policies and routines based on bottle feeding still predominate in too many health care institutions and make breastfeeding difficult, even impossible, for too many mothers and babies.

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Breastfeeding - Why on Earth??

Now that more and more women are breastfeeding their babies, more and more are also finding that they enjoy breastfeeding enough to want to continue longer than the usual few months they initially thought they would. UNICEF has long encouraged breastfeeding for two years and longer, and the American Academy of Pediatrics is now on record as encouraging mothers to breastfeed at least one year and then for as long after as the mother and baby desire...

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Blocked Ducts and Mastitis: Definitions & Interventions

Mastitis is due to an infection (almost always due to bacteria rather than other types of germs) that usually occurs in breastfeeding mothers. However it can occur in any woman, even if she is not breastfeeding and can even occur in newborn babies of either sex. Nobody knows exactly why some women get mastitis and others do not. Bacteria may enter the breast through a crack or sore in the nipple but women without sore nipples also get mastitis and most women with cracks or sores do not.
Blocked ducts will almost always resolve without special treatment within 24 to 48 hours after starting. During the time the block is present, the baby may be fussy when breastfeeding on that side because the milk flow will be slower than usual. This is probably due to pressure from the lump collapsing other ducts. A blocked duct can be made to resolve more quickly if you.....

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Breastfeeding and Sore Nipples

"Good medicine" calls for the single "right" treatment for the "right" problem, true enough, but mothers with sore nipples don't have time to try out different treatments that may or may not work, so we have combined various treatments. Of course, preventing sore nipples in the first place would be the best treatment and often adjusting how the baby takes the breast can do more than anything to decrease and eliminate the mother's nipple soreness.

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