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Hospital Recovery and Breastfeeding

Before Baby Arrives
Knowing your birth plan is highly suggested before baby’s arrival. As you prepare for the birth of your baby you also should consider a recovery plan in the hospital. For hospital deliveries the following days will include recovering and having medical support when you need it. For breastfeeding success, lactation support is available and will be there to assure you your little one is latching on properly, is sucking effectively and will assess your situation. Make sure you take advantage of this consultation as it is a option that is highly recommended.

Rooming in
Having your baby by your side at all times is also highly suggested for the success of breastfeeding. Having your baby by your side allows baby to hear and smell you while resting allowing bonding to occur even while sleeping. There are certain situations when baby may need to go to the nursery for either observation or so that mommy can bathe. Our suggestion is to have your hospital recovery plan expressed to the hospital staff caring for you and your baby so that your exclusive breastfeeding plan is met.

Why Breast Milk?
This may be the question weighing on an expecting mothers mind, Why Breastmilk? There are so many reasons why Breast is Best as there are health risks when choosing not to breastfeed.

Why?
Mother’s Milk is the best nutrition for babies. It has just the right amount of fat, sugar, water and protein that is needed for a baby’s growth and development. Mother’s Milk, also known as ‘liquid gold’, contains antibodies that can protect infants from bacterial and viral infections. Among infants and children breastfed in the United States significantly lower rates of diarrhea, ear infections lower respiratory illness, and childhood lymphomas occur.
The connection of health benefits for both baby and women are well documented. For breastfeeding women their health benefits include quicker contracting of uterus helping it get back into it’s original size, delays ovulations for some women allowing a natural spacing in between children, lowers the risks of breast and ovarian cancers and breastfeeding allows a beautiful and natural way to feed your baby while eliminating expense and waste.
The beauty of breastfeeding also gives back beauty to our world! For our planet human milk is delivered to the consumer without any pollution, unnecessary packaging or waste. Producing, packaging, shipping and preparing canned formula, on the other hand, produce tremendous ecological waste. For instance, the 80,000 US mothers who breastfeed their babies for six months save 17,200 tons of tin that would have been used just for formula containers. On the other hand, 74% of babies are being fed formula at six months, which results in more than 44 million cans of formula that have to be produced, transported and then piled into landfills. (LLL.org)

Health Risks of Not Breastfeeding

•	Recent studies show that babies who are not exclusively breastfed for 6 months are more likely to develop a wide range of infectious diseases due to lacking the wonderful antibodies they need.
•	Infants who are not breastfed have a 21% higher postneonatal infant mortality rate in the U.S.
•	Studies suggest that infants who are not breastfed have higher rates of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in the first year of life.
•	Babies who are not breastfed are sick more often and have more doctor's visits.