Breastfeeding Photos

Here are a few inspiring breastfeeding photo series. Let's normalize it!

 Empowering Breastfeeding Photos

A Photographer's Portrait of His Wife Breastfeeding

Top 10 Places Women Breastfed

Tandem Breastfeeding

World Breastfeeding Week 2017!

Teach Me How to Breastfeed Video

World Breastfeeding Awareness Month

It's world breastfeeding awareness month! In honor of this, my next several posts will be focusing on breastfeeding information, resources, research, best practices, stories, and photos. I of course understand and respect that not all families I work with are breastfeeding, whether by choice or not, and there is of course some that fall in between. As a birth doula, I am always happy to support my doula clients any way they choose, however I find that most often, my clients are worried about and are asking me about breastfeeding -- usually right after birth and the postpartum visit. I had the great pleasure this year of becoming a Certified Breastfeeding Counselor, and am loving that I am able to provide a greater depth of support to my clients around breastfeeding.

To kick off the week, I want to share an awesome blog post from Lamaze's Science and Sensibility blog, which has excellent resources for breastfeeding or soon-to-be breastfeeding families.

Read the blog post here.

Beautiful Birth Photos

These photos are beautiful! Whether it's a home birth, hospital birth, natural birth, cesarean birth, midwife birth, water birth, OB birth, breastfeeding or formula feeding, or it's a first or second or third child... there's no one right way to do it. Take a look here.

Postpartum & Breastfeeding Nutrition For the New Mother

Postpartum nutrition! Many women aren't aware that for breastfeeding a newborn (or older baby), that often women need to eat more than they did when when they were pregnant! Of course, quality is important as well, as it's not just about getting enough calories.  The amount a breastfeeding mother should eat also depends on level of exercise, overall caloric needs, and other variables, or course. The best rule of thumb is to eat to your hunger, being mindful of making healthy choices whenever possible. Through recent research, we know that a mother's varied diet will encourage her child to enjoy a wide palette of flavors - all the more encouraging to eat well while breastfeeding! Check out the links below for more info on postpartum eating and nourishing the new mother:

Recovery From Childbirth: Postpartum Foods

Do Breastfeeding Mothers Need Extra Food or Fluids?

Nourishing the New Mom

Maternal Nutrition During Breastfeeding

Tongue Tie and the Newborn Baby

Since I have been training to become a Certified Breastfeeding Counselor, I've been thinking about and learning a great deal about breastfeeding - more than I had ever imagined. Something that comes up quire frequently with many new mothers is the challenge of breastfeeding. At a certain point, once you begin to hear of so many stories of difficulty breastfeeding, and depending on how much detail you hear in these stories - you may start to hear of tongue ties, lip ties, and the procedures done in attempt to remedy these situations. Why, if breastfeeding is supposed to be so natural and necessary for the survival of our species, are so many humans struggling with it? There are MANU reasons. One of the many possible reasons might be folic acid vs. folate. Read on in this article to learn more...

Tongue Tie and Breastfeeding, By Dr. Wilson

Breastfeeding & What to Eat

Spice it up!! I don't think these findings are at all surprising, in fact they seem pretty intuitive. But why not have a little research on it?! It's just one more reason to breastfeed.

Here's an excerpt from the article from the NYT, which you can read in full here:

"The variety of flavors that you eat during pregnancy go into your blood and then into the amniotic fluid, which the baby is constantly drinking, in utero, and the flavors that you eat while nursing cross from the blood vessels that supply the mammary glands into the breast milk. So instead of restricting the maternal diet, there’s now good evidence that by eating a wide variety of healthy and tasty foods during these periods, we are actually doing our babies a major favor.

“Breast-fed babies are generally easier to feed later because they’ve had this kind of variety experience of different flavors from their very first stages of life, whereas a formula-fed baby has a uniform experience,” said Lucy Cooke, a psychologist specializing in children’s nutrition, who is a senior research associate at University College London. “The absolute key thing is repeated exposure to a variety of different flavors as soon as you can possibly manage; that is a great thing for food acceptance.” "

Lactation Counselor, Breastfeeding Counselor, or Lactation Consultan?

Many parents are not aware that there is a difference between a breastfeeding counselor, sometimes called lactation counselor, and a lactation consultant. The two are quite worlds away, as one essentially a certificate training, and one is licensed and board certified. Read on below to find out the difference between the two. 

Find the article here.