Breastfeeding basics for family and supporters
Breastfeeding is often treated like it is just the responsibility of the parent, but in fact, breastfeeding has the best chance of success when it is a community effort. When new parents feel supported to thrive everyone benefits!
Breastfeeding is a normal biological process, but it is a learned skill, it can be challenging at first and it requires a lot of support!
Give the person you love the best chance of breastfeeding by watching this video to learn the basics.
This video is presented by Antonia Anderson, who co-teaches our Postpartum Education and Care Professional Course along with me, the founder of Newborn Mothers, Julia Jones.
Transcript
Breastfeeding is often treated like it's just the responsibility of the parent, but, in fact, breastfeeding has the best chance of success when it's a community effort. When new parents feel supported to thrive, everyone benefits. Now, you don't need to be an expert in breastfeeding to support parents, but it does help to know the basics, so, in this video, I'm going to share with you a little bit about how breastfeeding works.
When a baby attaches to the parent's breast, nerve impulses are carried to the brain and lots of hormones are released. Now, two of these hormones are called prolactin and oxytocin. Prolactin is the milk-making hormone. It stimulates the milk-producing glands in the breasts. Oxytocin is the milk-releasing hormone.
You may have heard about oxytocin in other contexts and you might already know that it's important during labor and childbirth, but it's also very important in breastfeeding. It triggers something called the let-down reflex. The let-down is that moment when the milk is actually released from the breast so that the baby can drink it. The let-down is stimulated by rapid sucking at the beginning of a feed.
On the screen, I'm showing you a baby who's well-attached to the breast. If we imagine that this baby has just attached and is just beginning to breastfeed, what we would expect to see and hear is this rapid suck, suck, suck, suck, suck. This rapid sucking triggers the milk let-down. Now, at this point, when the milk has let down, baby's sucking rhythm will slow way down and, instead of suck, suck, suck, suck, suck, you'll see and hear suck, swallow, suck, swallow, suck, swallow, just like that, and you can actually see the baby's little jaw moving. There'll be that suck and then the jaw will drop, and you'll see the baby swallowing milk.
Now, this process is similar to a tap or a valve turning on. In the image I'm showing you, there's water gushing out from a tap onto a woman's hands. Now, if we were to reach out and turn off that tap, the flow of water would stop, but that doesn't mean that the water has gone away. There are still litres and litres of water waiting to be released. In the same way, most new parents have an abundant milk supply. That breast milk is already there waiting to be released, and the let-down is how the milk is released. The let-down releases the milk from the breasts so the baby can drink it, just like turning on a tap.
Now, in order to turn on this tap, it helps a lot to make the breastfeeding parent feel relaxed, content, and comfortable. Remember, oxytocin is the happiness hormone, so anything that makes a breastfeeding parent feel happy supports that let-down reflex. For example, friends and family can help trigger oxytocin by bringing the breastfeeding parent a favorite drink, providing nourishing meals, maybe giving them a massage, reading aloud, or playing some music, really anything that they love. Having supportive friends and family around to create this restful environment is so important for breastfeeding success.
Let's look now at the supply-and-demand principle. When the baby removes milk from the breast, the brain then gets the message to make more milk. The more a parent feeds their baby, the more breast milk will be produced. It really is that simple. For thousands of years, humans have been successfully breastfeeding their babies according to this simple principle, but still, today, many modern women worry about their milk supply because of negative messages from the media or bad advice that they might've received.
If you ever wonder if a baby is getting enough milk, just remember the supply-and-demand principle. Every time the baby attaches to the breast and feeds, the parent's brain gets the signal to produce more milk. The parent's breast milk supply will adapt to match the baby's needs. This is a normal biological process, but, again, there are many things that friends and family can do to support this process.
First of all, a newborn baby needs to be with its parent as much as possible so that the brain is getting accurate signals about how much breast milk to produce. If the baby is removed from the parent or given formula or if they miss a feed, then the breast might not produce the right amount of milk.
The more that we can support a parent to spend time with their newborn, the better it is for the parent's breast milk supply. For example, friends and family might help by looking after the parent'’ other children doing housework, or cooking meals. They might also help by giving the mother privacy and creating a peaceful environment in her home so she can relax. All of these things give the parent the opportunity to spend time with their baby so that the principle of supply and demand can kick in and get breastfeeding off to the best possible start.
Parents were never meant to breastfeed alone. Humans evolved to require community care, and this is never more true than during the postpartum time. When parents feel supported and nourished, their babies thrive, families feel more connected and communities grow stronger. Breastfeeding is a normal biological process, but it is a learned skill for the parent. It can be challenging at first and it does require a lot of support.
I hope this short explanation of how breastfeeding works has been helpful to you. Thanks so much for watching.
