Breastfeeding your baby

You’re probably buried in information if you’ve been thinking about not breastfeeding your newborn. You alone can decide for yourself, yet the advantages seem limitless.

Let’s go over all the advantages for both you and the baby before you make a decision (or if you simply need confirmation that breastfeeding is the best option for you).

For newborns, breast milk is the best source of nutrients. It is readily available, quickly digested, and has the correct amount of nutrients.

The American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) suggests continuing exclusive breastfeeding after the first six months, even if solid meals are introduced, until the child is at least one year old or until both the mother and the child are ready to stop.

Symptoms of Baby’s Hunger

Your infant will typically cry to let you know when they are hungry. Other indications that your infant is hungry include:

• Putting their tongue out or licking their lips
• Using their jaw, tongue, or head to search for your breast is known as “rooting.”
• Placing one’s hand in one’s mouth
• Making a mouthful
• Fussiness
• Picking things up

Will You Produce Enough Milk for breastfeeding?

Your breasts are the perfect source of “first milk” in the early postpartum days. It is known as colostrum. Colostrum is scarce, thick, and yellowish, yet there is enough of it to suit your baby’s nutritional demands. A new-borns’ digestive system develops and gets ready to digest breast milk with the aid of colostrum.

The initial stage of breast milk, called colostrum, develops over time to provide your baby with the nutrition they require as they grow. Transitional milk is the second stage. You produce this as your mature milk, or third phase of breast milk, gradually replaces your colostrum. A few days after giving birth, you’ll begin to produce transitional milk.

You’ll start producing mature milk 15 days after giving birth, which will provide your kid with all the nutrition they require. In the first 3 to 5 days following delivery, the majority of newborns lose a tiny bit of weight. This has nothing to do with breastfeeding.

Your breasts produce more milk as your baby nurses and needs more of it. For six months, experts advise trying to breastfeed entirely (with no formula, juice, or water). Your breasts might produce less milk if you take a supplement like formula.

Even if you breastfeed for fewer than the advised six months, it’s still preferable to do so than not at all. At six months, you can introduce solid food, but if you want to keep your milk supply going, you should still nurse.

What advantages does breastfeeding have?

Breastfeeding benefits mothers as well as infants. For the majority of newborns, breast milk is the best source of nutrients. Breast milk adapts as a baby grows to match his or her dietary requirements. Additionally, breastfeeding can help shield the mother and child from some ailments and diseases. 

Benefits of Breastfeeding for Mother

Breastfeeding burns additional calories, hastening your weight loss after pregnancy. It causes the production of the hormone oxytocin, which aids in the uterus’s return to its pre-pregnancy size and may lessen postpartum uterine haemorrhage. Breast and ovarian cancer risk are also reduced by breastfeeding. You might experience less osteoporosis as a result.