There’s a phrase we use a lot: “baby to breast”. That means that the baby moves TO YOU. You don’t move to the baby. Find yourself a comfortable position with good back support and the baby moves to you. If you lean forward, sit bolt upright, push the breast about, lift the breast up – you are risking problems.
If you don’t feel you can move the baby towards the breast, check how you are holding them. Do you need to hold them very much at all if they are lying on you? Perhaps you’re holding them just around the head and it feels a bit like your yanking them from the ears? Look at placing more of their body on your arm if you’re using the cross-cradle or cradle hold.
If you feel the need to lift the breast, are you using a breastfeeding cushion/pillow that’s too high? We all have a different amount of space between our lap and our breasts. Breastfeeding cushions perpetuate a myth that we’re all roughly the same shape. For some women, a commercial breastfeeding pillow will be far too high. Their breasts hang such that the baby need only rest on their lap. For some people, it’s far too low. If we lean back slightly, the baby’s weight will be resting on our torso and we should not need a cushion at all. Also look at the angle of our nipples. Some of us have nipples that come out at right angles from our body. So baby will come onto our body at a right angle. A lot of us have nipples that point down slightly, so baby will need to come slightly up from under the breast to make sure both cheeks are making contact with their breast. They will be looking slightly up towards our shoulder, rather than towards the middle of our backs. If we put that baby to the slightly drooping breast at a right angle, their bottom cheek wouldn’t be making contact and some breast tissue on the lower side wouldn’t be far back enough in the baby’s mouth. Try and breastfeed with your breasts in their natural shape and things will be a lot easier.
So:
Big wide gape with bottom lip out like a fish lip.
The more-of-a-mouthful-below-the-nipple.
The chin contacts on the breast and chin driving into the breast with a head tilt.
Baby’s body close and tight to yours.
The baby’s body should be in a line: ear/ shoulder/ hip.
Baby to breast, not you leaning forward and ‘offering’. Try lying back if you can.
Breast in its natural shape wherever possible.
Both cheeks touching breast. Lips not even visible.
Mum comfortable.
That’s too many things to make a clever mnemonic out of. BMCLBNCC?
What will it feel like?
It feels like a teeny being sucking your nipple to about 3 times its natural length and then massaging your breast with its tongue while creating a vacuum and wiggling its chin up and down.
However that doesn’t quite capture the magic.
It feels exciting and important. It feels like this tiny person is connected to you in ways you couldn’t quite imagine. Oxytocin hormone is flying everywhere and you feel quite blissful. Some people say powerful. Perhaps a bit tired too. Exhilarated and peaceful – you can be both of those things at once. The beginning of a really important journey. Perhaps the most valuable journey of your life.
After a career as a Deputy Headteacher in central London, Emma initially trained with UK charity Association of Breastfeeding Mothers (www.abm.me.uk), qualifying as a breastfeeding counsellor with them in 2007. She is currently their chair. She qualified as a Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in 2011 and combines a small private practice with volunteering at two groups a week and answering calls on the National Breastfeeding Helpline. You can find her on Twitter as @makesmilk. She spoke at the UNICEF Baby Friendly UK conference in November this year on the theme of responsive feeding. Her book, “You’ve Got It In You: a positive guide to breastfeeding” can be found on Amazon and from other retailers: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B019JE5E44
