What if? Meeting breastfeeding challenges.

It's natural to wonder "what if", whether that is "what if I can't feed my baby?" or "what if it hurts?"

Many of us have heard stories about women who have experienced breastfeeding challenges such as sore nipples, mastitis or who have stopped before they would have liked due to concerns about their milk supply.

May of these challenges can be prevented or minimized by getting breastfeeding off to a good start, and by early skilled help if your instincts tell you something is not right.

"When we trust the makers of baby formula more than we do our own ability to nourish our babies, we lose a chance to claim an aspect of our power as women. Thinking that baby formula is as good as breast milk is believing that thirty years of technology is superior to three million years of nature's evolution. Countless women have regained trust in their bodies through nursing their children, even if they weren't sure at first that they could do it. It is an act of female power, and I think of it as feminism in its purest form." - Christine Northrup M.D.

Collected below are some useful resources that will show you how to manage some of these "what if" moments.

Concerns about milk supply
http://newborns.stanford.edu/Breastfeeding/MaxProduction.html

Expressing milk by hand

If your baby is struggling to latch on in the early days then hand expression can help both to get valuable colostrum for your baby and to stimulate your milk supply for when baby is able to feed. Later on, once milk volumes increase some mothers find a breast pump useful but many mums find hand expression works just as well - saving the need for lots of equipment.

Expressing off some milk by hand can also be useful in cases of engorgement to relieve the fullness before your baby latches on.

http://www.bestbeginnings.org.uk/expressing-and-returning-to-work

Also this site has a good clip - scroll down for the english commentary and text
http://ammehjelpen.no/handmelking?id=907

Babies & sleep
Many new parents find that having a newborn baby is tiring, even more so if you have more than one! Its often not long before someone suggests to offer a bottle in the hope that this will help baby sleep longer and let Mum get more sleep.

This however has the risks that the mother's milk supply will be drop due to the missed feeds (whether baby is given formula or breast milk expressed at another time). Recent research has also shown that breastfeeding mothers get more sleep

Sore nipples
Sore nipples are avoidable - by ensuring that baby is well latched on to the breast, not just the nipple this helps to keep breastfeeding comfortable for mum as well as helping baby to get the milk more easily. If you are struggling with sore nipples we would recommend talking to or seeing an experienced breastfeeding counsellor or lactation consultant.

Details of who you can call are on our page Finding breastfeeding Support

It may also be worth reviewing the links on positioning and attachment in our Getting Breastfeeding Started section.

Tongue Tie
Sometimes the baby's tongue is tightly anchored to the bas of their mouth by an overly tight frenulum - this is called a tongue tie and can make breastfeeding difficult for your baby - leading to sore nipples for you and a slow weight gain for your baby. If you have worked on the positioning and are still suffering soreness then this page http://cwgenna.com/quickhelp.html shows some ways in which you may be able to tell if your baby is tongue tied.

Mastitis
Mastitis is an inflammation or swelling or the breast. It is not always due to an infection but can be due to milk leaking into breast tissue from a blocked duct or engorgement (such as due to missing a feed).

The Breastfeeding Network has a good information sheet you can download on Mastitis & Breastfeeding at http://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/pdfs/BFN_Mastitis.pdf which included information on prevention, signs of mastitis, self help measures and medical treatment.

Special Circumstances - Clefts & Downs Syndrome
Useful resources from La Leche league and mums own stories about breastfeeding these special babies.

http://www.childrensmn.org/Manuals/PFS/Nutr/018722.pdf

Breastfeeding, medications and alcohol

How safe is...? Alcohol, smoking, medicines and breastfeeding.An introduction to the Breastfeeding Network's series of leaflets on common (and not so common) drugs and breastfeeding.

Links to all the Breastfeeding Network's resources on Breastfeeding and Medicines.

Breastfeeding and Alcohol - including lots of links to further information.

Alcohol and Motherhood. A more in depth look at the research into alcohol and breastfeeding from La Leche League International.