You were probably told breastfeeding would be this incredible biological postpartum weight loss plan. While that may be true for about 1/3 of people, most of us hold on to our weight regardless of how much boob juice we make. When you breastfeed, fat cells stored in your body during pregnancy and calories from your diet fuel milk production. Your body burns about 20 calories for each ounce of milk you make. Which is why you need an extra 300-500 calories a day.
Why are you not losing the baby weight?
🧁 I don’t know about you, but I was hungrier breastfeeding than pregnant. You’re still eating for two only your second party is bigger now than when they were in your belly. Breastfeeding cravings are real
🧁 Lactation cookies? Let’s be honest, a cookie is still a cookie whether or not it helps with your supply. Eating lots of bars, cookies, power drinks and teas with sugar or honey are not going to help with weight
😵💫Stress: Research has also found that elevated cortisol levels (the stress hormone) have been associated with weight retention in the first 12 months postpartum
🩸Hormones: Prolactin, your milk making hormone, is also sometimes called the “fat-storing hormone”. High levels of prolactin can result in weight gain. And they are at their highest while breastfeeding. While more research on prolactin is needed, we hypothesize that our bodies undergo metabolic adaptations to hold onto excess fat as “insurance” for making milk
🔑Remember: there is waaaay too much pressure to “bounce back” after having a baby. Your body is epic and lovely and just pushed a tiny human being out. Your body is going through so many changes and there are physiological things at play that can be beyond your control. Trust your body. Trust your baby. Love your body.
What’s true for most is never true for all. There is a bell curve to human anatomy and physiology. What you are taught is the middle of the curve: what most people do. But there is such a wide variety of normal, the people at either end of the spectrum often are lead to believe that what they experience isn’t normal, when it fact it’s just a variation of normal. Breastfeeding is the same. There is a wide variation of normal. For example:
💦It’s normal to leak milk. It’s also normal to not leak milk at all. Many leak for the first 3-4 months and see the leaking slow when supply regulates around 11-14 weeks. Some stop leaking right away and other leak the whole time the breastfeed
🤱🏾Most breastfed babies (once they’re no longer newborns) want to feed every 2-3 hours and average 8-12 feedings in 24 hours. Some breastfed babies will only do 5-6 feedings and others will seem like boob barnacles who are latched all day. As long as your baby is making enough wet and dirty diapers and gaining weight as expected, let them feed how they want
👼🏼Most breast feeders cannot go more than 6 hours without feeding or pumping and maintain their milk supply. The breast needs emptied frequently to get the signal that more milk needs made. But some can go 8-12 hours and not lose supply. While others can’t go more than 2-3 without the same risk. Breast storage capacity is unique in every breast and what’s true for you won’t be true for someone else
If someone tells you “All breastfeeding does/looks like/should be….”, don’t believe them. While there are general guidelines to how breastfeeding works, there is still such a wide variety of normal. And what works for you won’t necessarily work for someone else. If something is working for you, don’t let comparison to someone else’s journey sabotage your own.
Do you feel hot, sticky, sweaty, sopping wet and a little stinky? Welcome to motherhood. It does get better. There is an actual biological point to leaking from every pore and that weird stench that accompanies it. Not all of our senses are developed at birth. It would overwhelm our littles too much to go from a dark, wet environment to such a bright, crazy world to actually have every sense developed like ours. Their vision isn’t great and they have no depth perception. But they have a fully developed sense of smell. They have been getting to know your odors since their womb days. Your amniotic fluid was constantly changing in its scent based on what you ate and drank and your unique hormone combination. All that leaking you’re doing postpartum has a similar scent which serves to orient your baby back to you. Your body odors are familiar to your baby and it makes them feel safe and secure that they are with their birth person and not someone else. Your leaking smells also stimulate their hunger, which is why baby may constantly root when on your body even if they aren’t hungry. Did you know that the breast secretes an oil from those little bumps on your areolas that smells just like amniotic fluid? This helps baby locate dinner when they are ready to eat. Showering is normal, but avoiding the use of scented products can actually be very helpful and calming for your baby. While you may find your body odor unbecoming, know that to your baby it makes you feel like home.
You may also feel more thirsty than usual, especially during let down. The oxytocin that releases your milk to baby also triggers your thirst. It's your body's way of reminding you to get enough water to produce breast milk. Remember, with breastfeeding, you are losing up to 30 ounces of fluid a day to breast milk. So your body is reminding you to take care of yourself and not just the baby.
A milk bleb happens when the nipple pore gets blocked/clogged by a piece of skin or a small amount of hardened breast milk. It usually looks like a white dot on the nipple and the pain tends to be focused at that spot and just behind it. The clog might be a tiny, dry clump of hardened milk or a “string” of fattier, semi-solidified milk.
Blebs are often caused by:
👉🏼Shallow latch
👉🏼Tongue tied baby
👉🏼Pumping with too large of a flange
👉🏼Often associated with recurrent mastitis
When the bleb is being caused by skin covering the nipple pore, the duct obstruction will often pop out from the pressure of nursing or manual expression. By changing baby’s position at the breast and focusing on a deep latch, breastfeeding alone will often pop the bleb.
Always figure out the root of why you have one and address that first. Other remedies:
❤️🩹Keeping olive or coconut oil on the top to soften the bleb
❤️🩹Hand expressing behind the bleb to move milk through
❤️🩹Switch nursing positions
❤️🩹Taking sunflower lecithin
❤️🩹Ice after feeding to reduce inflammation
❤️🩹Epsom salt or saline soaks
❤️🩹Triamcinolone 0.1% spot applied for 1-3 weeks under direction of an IBCLC
❤️🩹If they do not resolve on their own in a few days, seeing a breast specialist for further work up and management
You’re happily pumping to your usual routine. You throw that bag of liquid gold in the freezer, proud of what your body can make to feed your baby. But when you come back the next day the bag is still liquid. Puzzled, you hit up google only to find a few dozen other moms asking the same thing with nothing more than some Reddit and mommy group anecdotes and no actual answers.
I had a mom reach out to me with this same question. So I went back to the lactation forums only to learn has puzzled even the most experienced IBCLC lactation consultant. There is only one research study done in Spanish that has attempted to research this phenomenon. Here’s what we know:
🍷It’s not because you’ve had too much alcohol. Yes, alcohol has a lower freezing temperature, but the amount of alcohol you’d have to consume to get that level in your milk would land you in the hospital
🧊Check to make sure your freezer is at the correct temperature.
🥶The quick fix is to take the bag out of the freezer, shake it vigorously and put it back in the freezer in a single layer without it touching other bags
🍦 There are a few theories about this. One PhD chemist says it has to do with the high osmolarity of that particular milk. Basically it has extra nutrients than other milk, extra vitamins and most likely a higher fat content it’s why it doesn’t happen all the time
🔬Dr. João Aprigio Guerra de Almeida is Coordinator of the Network of Milk Banks of Brazil and of the Ibero-American Network of milk banks. He stated:
“The fact that human milk does not freeze is associated with a phenomenon called gelation, which is autocatalytic, begins even inside the mammillary ducts, continues after extraction, and is accentuated by temperature fluctuations (heating to thaw, pasteurization and cooling) and does not disqualify the milk for consumption.“
How and why does gelation occur?
Aprigio explains:
“The milk accumulated inside the ducts, as in cases of breast engorgement, promotes pressure on the internal walls of the ducts.
On the other hand, by virtue of Isaac Newton's law of action and reaction, the ducts also promote a force on the milk – a pressure on the milk inside the ducts.
Since milk has proteins in its structure, this pressure exerted by the ducts alters the quaternary structure of the proteins, which begin to be “uncoiled or uncoiled”, assuming a more linear structure that is chemically unstable.
In search of a new stability, these proteins establish chemical bonds with the water in the milk through hydrogen bonds.
Thus, the water in human milk becomes progressively linked to the proteins, becoming imprisoned by them and, consequently, even when the temperature of the product is below the freezing point, the product does not freeze, since the water is chemically bound to the protein and for this reason fails to reorient itself to form ice crystals.
Once started, because it is an autocatalytic process, it continues. For this reason, even if the milk is kept at -18ºC in the freezer, it does not freeze, because the proteins form a network that ignites the water molecules, preventing them from coming together to form ice crystals.”
João Aprigio suggests in this situation not to think badly about milk, since it is suitable for consumption. You just have to take it out of the freezer and shake vigorously to undo the protein network that keeps the water trapped.
This may seem strange and a bit confusing, because what we usually say when the milk has been thawed for use and is ready to be fed is to shake gently. Now, when you shake the container or bag of milk it would freeze almost instantly in your hands.”
Have you ever experienced this with your milk?
The discussion by Dr. João Aprigio Guerra de Almeida is translated from Spanish from an original blog post by Gema Cárcamo González-IBCLC. Click here for the original Spanish version from:
Smoking and breastfeeding. In a nut shell: try to quit or decrease smoking when breastfeeding, but it’s better to breastfeed while smoking than to formula feed and continue to smoke
Smoking can cause low milk supply/milk let-down issues for you and your baby is at increased risk of colic, poor weight gain, respiratory infections, and SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). Your milk does not eliminate these risks but does significantly lower them compared to formula. Breastfeeding also helps protect babies from the potential risks of environmental smoke.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) removed nicotine from its list of “contraindicated” substances during breastfeeding. An AAP statement issued in 2001 says, in part:
“One study reported that, among women who continue to smoke throughout breastfeeding, the incidence of acute respiratory illness is decreased among their infants, compared with infants of mothers who bottle fed. It may be that breastfeeding and smoking is less detrimental to the child than bottle feeding and smoking.”
If you do continue to smoke:
⏱️Wait as much time as possible between smoking and breastfeeding to lower the amount of nicotine in your milk
🧯Smoke right after breastfeeding and away from baby. Change your clothes and wash your hands before coming back to care for your baby’s. Have other smokers do the same
🚬E-cigs and vapes may have the same risks. There is limited research about the safety and health effects of e-cigarettes.
Tummy Time is one of baby’s first exercises! It is a crucial exercise for baby’s motor, visual, and sensory development. We’re encouraging baby to use their core strength and rotate their head from side to side. It also helps with digestion and frequent tummy time helps baby poop. It is not only an important way to prevent flat spots on baby’s head, it is also an important part of baby’s normal growth and development. The womb is an incredibly tight place, especially if baby made it to term or you have a short torso and there wasn’t much space for stretching. Long vaginal labors with extended pushing phases can leave baby with lots of tension in the head, neck and shoulders. Getting baby into different positions really should start from birth to help relieve this tension. Too much tension can impact breastfeeding, which often looks like baby arching at the breast or having a side preference because it’s uncomfortable to feed in certain positions from tension on the neck. Laying baby flat on their back too often will impact the shape of their head, which in turn influences brain growth. Baby can begin tummy time as a newborn and increase time as they age and develop.
Tummy time doesn’t mean you need to plunk your baby down on a mat and engage them with black and white drawings with a timer set. It can look like wearing your baby in a ring sling or structured carrier, napping with your baby laying on your chest, or even like this, with baby across your lap. This is a great position for you if you’re needing to pump but baby wants to be on your body. You can still sway or move and give baby some gentle pats to help calm them or transition them to sleep. This is a safe place and position for them to nap if you stay awake, as you can monitor the baby for the duration of their sleep.
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For more information on tummy time, check out @tummytimemethod
Hey you!!! Yes, you, the one pumping milk at 2am. Just a reminder pumping volumes are not a true indicator of your milk supply and don’t determine your work as a parent. There are many factors that go in to how much you can pump. Pump quality, the flanges you’re using, how you’re setting up the pump session, how long it was since your last session, time of day, medications, and where you’re at on your period all play a role in how much milk you will see in the bottles.
Pumps were designed after babies and not the other way around. And they’re not usually as efficient as an efficiently feeding baby. A baby with no tongue or lip tie and a strong suck can remove more milk and trigger more milk to be made better than commercially purchased pumps.
I expect you to be able to pump 1/4-1oz combined from both breasts when pumping after directly breastfeeding and 2-4oz every 2-3 hours when pumping in place of breastfeeding. Your worth is not measured in ounces. Nor is it measured by what that other lady on social media can pump. You’ve got this. Trust your baby and trust your body.
If you’re struggling with pumping or how to understand the process better, consider taking my Pumped class. Or a personal flange fitting both in person and virtual.
The food you eat and the water you drink do not magically go directly to your breast milk. What you eat and drink goes first to your stomach to be broken down and then into your intestines to be absorbed and processed. Your digestive system breaks nutrients into parts small enough for your body to absorb and use for energy, growth, and cell repair. The muscles of the small intestine mix food with digestive juices from the pancreas, liver, and intestine. Special cells in the walls of the small intestine absorb water and the digested nutrients into your bloodstream. Your blood carries molecule-sized components such as simple sugars (carbohydrates), amino acids, white blood cells, enzymes, water, fat, and proteins throughout your body. As blood passes by the breasts, milk glands pull out these nutrients for milk production and pass some of them to your baby. Not all molecules are small enough to pass through into milk. (That’s why some medications are safe to take while breastfeeding and some are not. Molecules that are too big can’t get into the milk while really small molecules can.)
Nuts, seeds, beans, and grains all have plant based proteins. Meat and dairy are animal based proteins. Both plant and animal proteins carried in your blood can make it into your milk. Sometimes these proteins can affect baby’s digestive system, causing symptoms like reflux, gas, colic, and blood or mucus in the poops from iritations to baby’s intestinal lining. Diary proteins are the most common cause of upset in the stomach, however research suggests that the proportion of exclusively breastfed infants who are actually allergic to something in their mother’s milk is very small. Fussiness and gas alone are not enough to diagnose a cow milk protein allergy.
In general, there are NO foods that need to be avoided because you’re breastfeeding. Every baby is different in the foods they are sensitive to. IF your baby always seems to have a reaction when you eat a certain food or a large amount of a certain type of food, cutting back on it or cutting it out temporarily may be helpful.
Mastitis is a common complication of lactation that at it’s most basic definition is inflammation or swelling in the breast. This inflammation often starts with an unresolved plugged duct where milk has either not be moved soon enough (like from baby sleeping longer at night or not pumping enough at work) or from the wrong size pump flange that does not allow milk to empty efficiency. Mastitis may happen with increased maternal stress or a change in the family routine. This may be when guests are visiting, during the holidays, or when returning to work. It is not always easy to tell the difference between a breast infection and a plugged duct. They have similar symptoms, and both can get better within a day or two.
Regardless of why it started, The diagnosis of mastitis is generally made by your symptoms. It is characterized by one sided breast tenderness and redness (often with a noticeable lump in a certain area), accompanied by a fever of 101°F (38.5°C) or greater. You may feel fatigued and symptoms of the flu like, chills, nausea or vomiting, body aches, and headache. The breast will also often have a wedge shape, redness in an area accompanied by breast fullness and tenderness in the same spot.
