Pregnancy — Breastfeeding

• Breastfeeding Myths #4

  Nursing mothers cannot breastfeed if they have had X-rays. Not true! Regular X-rays such as a chest X-ray or dental X-rays do not affect the milk or the baby and the mother may nurse without concern. Mammograms are harder to read when the mother is lactating, but can be done and the mother should not stop breastfeeding just to get this done.

• Breastfeeding Myths #3

  Women with flat or inverted nipples cannot breastfeed. Not true! Babies do not breastfeed on nipples, they breastfeed on the breast. Though it may be easier for a baby to latch on to a breast with a prominent nipple, it is not necessary for nipples to stick out.

• Breastfeeding Myths #2

  A breastfeeding mother has to be obsessive about what she eats. Not true! A breastfeeding mother should try to eat a balanced diet, but neither needs to eat any special foods nor avoid certain foods. A breastfeeding mother does not need to drink milk in order to make milk. A breastfeeding mother does not need to avoid spicy foods, garlic, cabbage or alcohol. A breastfeeding mother should eat a normal healthful diet.

• Breastfeeding Myths #1

  Many women do not produce enough milk. Not true! The vast majority of women produce more than enough milk. Indeed, an overabundance of milk is common. Most babies that gain too slowly, or lose weight, do so not because the mother does not have enough milk, but because the baby does not get the milk that the mother has.

• Breastfeeding and Other Foods

  Breastmilk is the only food your baby needs until at least 4 months of age and most babies do very well on breastmilk alone for 6 months or more. There is no advantage to adding other sorts of foods or milks to breastmilk before 4 to 6 months, except under unusual or extraordinary circumstances. Many of the situations in which breastmilk seems to require addition of other foods arise from misunderstandings about how breastfeeding works, and/or originate from a poor start at establishing breastfeeding.

• You Can Still Breastfeed

  Over the years, many, many, many women have been wrongly told to stop breastfeeding. The decision about continuing breastfeeding when the mother must take a drug, for example, involves more than consideration of whether the medication appears in the mother’s milk. It also involves taking into consideration the risks of formula feeding for the baby, which are substantial, the risks of not breastfeeding for the mother, which are substantial, and other issues as well.

• Fingerfeeding

  Fingerfeeding Finger feeding is a technique which allows you to feed the baby without giving the baby an artificial nipple. Finger feeding is also a method which helps train the baby to take the breast.

• Breastfeeding and Jaundice

  Jaundice is due to a buildup in the blood of bilirubin, a yellow pigment which comes from the breakdown of old red blood cells. It is normal for red blood cells to break down, but the bilirubin formed does not usually cause jaundice because the liver metabolizes it and gets rid of it into the gut. The newborn baby, however, often becomes jaundiced during the first few days because the liver enzyme which metabolizes bilirubin is relatively immature. Furthermore, newborn babies have more red blood cells than adults, and thus more are breaking down at any one time. If the baby is premature, or stressed from a difficult birth, or the infant of a diabetic mother, or more than the usual number of red blood cells are breaking down (as happens in blood incompatibility), the level of bilirubin in the blood may rise higher than what is usual.