Breastfeeding: The Basics

What Everyone Should Know about Breastfeeding
Deeksha Sharma
  1. Like all mothers you can successfully breastfeed your baby, which is the most natural way to feed babies.
  2. Breast milk is complete nutrition (i.e. food and drink) for an infant for the first six months of life. During this period, an infant needs exclusive breastfeeding and no other food or drink, not even water, is required.
  3. Newborn babies need to be given to the mother to hold immediately after delivery. They should have skin-to-skin contact with the mother and begin breastfeeding within one hour of birth.
  4. Colostrum, the first yellowish mother's milk that comes during the first 2-3 days after birth is the first immunization. Nothing should be given before the first breastfeed.
  5. Babies should be breastfed unrestrictedly, day and night, and on demand. Breastfeeding the baby frequently causes production of more milk.
  6. Breastfeeding helps protect babies and young children against dangerous illnesses. It also creates a special bond between mother and child. No pacifiers should be given to the babies. You can continue breastfeeding during your or your child's sickness without any harm to the baby and yourself.
  7. Bottle feeding and giving a baby breast milk substitutes such as infant formula or animal milk can threaten the baby’s health and survival. If a woman cannot breastfeed her infant, the baby can be fed expressed breast milk or, if necessary, a quality breast milk substitute from an ordinary clean cup.
  8. A woman employed away from her home can continue to breastfeed her child. She should breastfeed as often as possible when she is with the infant and express her breast milk when they are apart so that another caregiver can feed it to the baby in a clean and safe way.
  9. After 6 months of age, when babies begin to eat foods they need a variety of additional foods. Home-made, family food is better than commercial food for your baby.
  10. Breastfeeding should continue for up to two years and beyond because it is an important source of nutrition, energy and protection from illness.

All women have the right to an environment that protects, promotes and supports breastfeeding, including the right to protection from commercial pressures to artificially feed their babies. The Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1992 as Amended in 2003 (IMS Act) aims to provide the necessary protection by prohibiting the promotion of all breast milk substitutes, feeding bottles and teats.

 Further reading: 10 facts on breastfeeding: WHO; July 2015

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Using Birth Affirmations - Divya Hegde

Image
Affirmations, visualisations are immensely helpful in connecting deeply and in creating the positive experience that you want. What we believe in definitely affects how we experience birth. Words are very powerful – affirmations help use that power to ‘tune in’ with our partner and baby on this parenting journey. You can use them at any point to address an underlying fear and take positive action. You can use the affirmation, ‘A c-sec can be my positive bridge to motherhood’ if you have a fear of surgery. Affirmations are very helpful in dealing with pain too. ‘Each surge brings my baby closer to me’ Write down affirmations that resonate and connect with you personally. They should be in the present tense, positive, precise and powerful. Saying, writing, reading, recording and listening to them helps immensely in your pregnancy journey. Here are a few suggestions that can help you through your pregnancy and during birth. In addition, you can write your own in words you b...
Read more

Delayed Cord Clamping and How It Helps - Shyami Sathiaseelan

Image
Image Source When a mother on the verge of labor asks us for a last minute checklist of things to do the first thing I remind them of is delayed cord clamping. What is Delayed Cord Clamping? WHO states clamping the cord at least one minute after the birth as delayed cord clamping for all births. But the general belief by some practitioners is that we should wait for 3 to 5 minutes or wait till the cord stops pulsating. Some of them even think it is better not to clamp or cut the cord till the placenta is delivered. But all of them agree on one thing, that delaying the cord clamping to some extent is definitely beneficial to the baby. So why delay the clamping? We have seen that everyone agrees on waiting for somewhere between one minute and till the cord stops pulsating or even the placenta is delivered. But why delay? What are the advantages? 1. Decreased risk of Anemia . According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, research shows ...
Read more

Questions To Ask Your Doctor To Ensure A Positive Birth Experience (I) - Shyami Gomu Sathiaseelan

Image
    Image Source   Every woman that has ever been pregnant can write a book on all the advice she has been given while pregnant. But when it comes to actual labor, nobody seems to have anything to say. Maybe, because like me, they too were in a lot of pain and hardly remember anything from that afterward.    After having two babies, I realised, if I were to have one more I would know the exact questions to ask. My second birth was so different from my first because I had learnt a few things. I remember having a million and one questions to ask during my first pregnancy and while some were answered, I got more added to it. Thankfully, even though I did not ask all the right questions, my doctors and midwives, being the wonderful people that they were, worked out for me. I would suggest not being quiet and ask questions without fail.   Like they say, you have to start preparing your body before you get pregnant, same way start asking your...
Read more