Advanced Lactation

Sometimes mothers go through extreme difficult conditions and circumstances which make it hard for them to breastfeed.  Advance complexities related to breastfeeding might include the following:​

  • Induced Lactation | Adoptive | Surrogacy Breastfeeding

  • Relactation

  • Cleft Palate Babies

  • Tongue & Lip Tie Babies

  • Premature Babies

  • Twin Babies or Multiple Babies

  • Babies with neuromuscular or Sensory Integration issues.

  • Babies with risk for hypernatremic dehydration, hypertonia (Increased muscle tone), hypotonia (low muscle tone)

  • LGBT Breastfeeding

  • Moms who wish to exclusively pump feed due to medical conditions in babies

  • Elimination of Formula Feeding

  • Hypoplasia/Insufficient Glandular Tissue

  • Post Natal Depression

Induced Lactation

You plan to adopt a baby in few months and may be wondering if you can breastfeed your baby? 

While you wait for your baby to arrive an induced lactation protocol can be initiated to help your breasts to begin lactating and prepare yourself with evidenced based information to ensure you do your best to get a good start at breastfeeding your baby.  

​Help to latch the baby, establish a milk supply, appropriate use of Supplemental Nursing System (SNS) and provide you with breastfeeding support and help you find your tribe.

Surrogacy

You have gone to a great extent to make plans to have your baby via surrogacy and wishing to breastfeed your baby to make the experience intimate.

While you wait for your baby to arrive an induced lactation protocol can be initiated to help your breasts to begin lactating and prepare yourself with evidenced based information to ensure you do your best to get a good start at breastfeeding your baby. 

Help to latch the baby, establish a milk supply, appropriate use of Supplemental Nursing System (SNS) and provide you with breastfeeding support and help you find your tribe. 

Relactation

You may have stopped breastfeeding due to poor or painful latch in the beginning or due to a low milk supply issue or even due to lack of family or social support.

You may be feeling a sense of failure and let down by your circumstances to nurture your baby at your breasts and had tried every possible tip you managed to research on the internet. It may help to know Relactation is possible. You can reestablish breastfeeding your baby. This will involve you to retrain your baby to nurse at the breast and also reinitiate breastmilk supply.  If your baby is 4 months old or younger it will generally be easier to relactate in case there was a short period of breastfeeding in the first few weeks after birth. However relactation can be satisfactorily done at any age even after 4 months.

Always remember the main goal of relactation is to establish a close relationship between you and your baby at your breast and not necessarily a full supply but could be a partial supply.  ​Consulting your Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) can provide a head start with evidenced based information to be prepared to reinitiate breastfeed with your baby.

Cleft Palate Babies & Craniofacial Variations

You may have experienced shock and sadness when you discovered your baby has a cleft.

Breastfeeding falls off your wish list almost immediately for very little has been explored or devised to consider its possibility for craniofacial variations in babies. It can be challenging but it can be successfully attempted and supported for comfort added with supplementation for many families before surgery.

Your baby can be supported to partially or completely moved to breast after surgery depending on various factors. What can be certainly supported is your wish to exclusively provide expressed breast milk for as long as you wish to. HERE is a story of a mother who worked round the clock to provide her baby the best of what she had. 

Tongue & Lip Tie Babies 

If you are experiencing any of these signs or symptoms:
​

  • Inability to latch or shallow latching at mother’s breast

  • Repeated unlatching during feed

  • Choking or spluttering milk

  • Prolonged and very frequent breastfeeding

  • Colicky and gassy  baby

  • Mouth breathing and snoring

  • Difficult in handling solids

  • Disturbed and Inadequate sleep

  • Excessive or inadequate weight gain

  • Nipple pain while breastfeeding

  • Thrush or episodes of mastitis and abscess


Perhaps you may be dealing with a undiagnosed congenital condition called a tongue & lip tie READ MORE HERE

Premature Babies 

Your milk is precious for your baby and it becomes even more precious when you have a premature baby.

​Premature babies have a special need for their mother's milk. It often can be the most valuable life-saving nutrients and immunities that can not only ensure shorter hospital stay for your baby but also ensure rapid development that supports health and well-being. Comprehensive support. can ensure a good plan to support your milk production and safe transition of your  baby to your breast.

Twin Babies or Multiple Babies 

You may have become a mother of more than one baby which makes it doubly joyful to welcome more than one life into your home.

You may however be worried if you can make enough milk for your babies considering most mothers around you who have twins or more have mostly given mixed feeding. Breastfeeding multiple babies requires special need of support. Rest assured for this too it is  possible with planning and good care of your nutrition.  

The other added challenge of multiple babies is prematurity and hospitalization. Appropriate information and support can allow you to be better planned for successful breastfeeding. 

Babies with neuromuscular or Sensory Integration issues

We have several sensory systems in our body that help define our experience of life and contact with others. Well-coordinated sensory processing system is important for breastfeeding as well. Your baby may need to feel secure with touch and also must be able to process a positioning at the breast.

Your baby also processes smell, touch, sight and hearing in order to feel coordinated to act a complex action at the breast by cupping the nipple and areola to form the teat in her mouth to respond to the stimulus of rooting to the breast. Integrated function with the use the muscle groups and sensory system to coordinate suck, swallow and breathing rhythm.

Here are a few signs that may indicate Sensory Integration Dysfunction:
  • Crying inconsolably while being put down even when carried in arms or a baby carrier.
  • Arches back when held or given bath
  • Extremely sensitive to cloth or diaper changes
  • Extremely unpredictable sleep/wake cycle
  • Sensitivity to sound and voices
  • Cries when held in a certain position
  • Difficult to calm the baby down
  • Difficulty in feeding - sucking, chewing, or swallowing.
  • Signs of over active gag reflex
  • Difficulty to handle textured food
  • Difficulty in transitioning

Post Natal Depression

Breastfeeding can be directly impacted by postpartum depression. For some mothers, breastfeeding can help reduce and heal the mother from her depression since pleasant & joyful breastfeeding experience can be therapeutic in nature.

However for some of the mothers it may cause a lot of stress and anxiety especially when its coupled with other breastfeeding challenges.

It is very important for you to learn to recognize the symptoms of depression during pregnancy and after birth so that you can be helped at the earliest. Depression can be treated with gentle craniosacral biodynamic therapy. For information READ HERE.

Symptoms or signs of postpartum depression include:​

  • Unexplained sadness when caring for your baby

  • Extreme stress due to lack of sleep unrelated to baby needs

  • Inconsolable crying Hopeless feeling and fear of inability to cope

  • Uncommon anxiety, irritability & anger

  • Fear of being alone or overwhelmed when with people

  • Memory loss and a foggy mind

  • Feeling of deep guilt and feeling of inadequacy

  • Loss of confidence and self-esteem

  • Unexplained thoughts of either harming your baby or thoughts of committing suicide.

Hypoplasia/Insufficient Glandular Tissue

Breast milk production  is always adequate for your baby if your baby's oral suckling function is normal and you have been exclusively meeting all nutritional and comforting needs at the breast since birth of your baby. However sometimes despite all that you might have tried, you continue to see severe lack of milk production.

​Less than 10% of mothers find it hard to produce adequate milk production despite on demand feeds.  A rare condition called the insufficient glandular tissue in breasts can sometimes make production of milk insufficient. It is possible to recognize, support, such situations and support breastfeeding to its optimal. 

Sometimes the signs may include:

  • Very wide space between both the breasts

  • Significant different sized breasts since puberty or due to accidental injury

  • Tubular shape of breast or bulbous areolae

  • Complete absence of breast changes in pregnancy

Babies with risk for Hypernatremic Dehydration, Hypertonia (increased muscle tone), Hypotonia (low muscle tone)

Breastfeeding is the most complete form of nurturing and nourishment for your baby. Breastfeeding-associated hypernatremia is a completely preventable complication. Insufficient breastfeeding are usually at risk for dehydration often due to lack of milk transfer during breastfeeding.

Primary lactation failure is very rare but real, owing to over-medicalisation of pregnancy, labor and birth , If it is unrecognized it can lead to adverse outcomes. An emphasis on exclusive breastfeeding without follow up can be unsafe during exclusive breastfeeding period. 

Babies with hypernatremic dehydration have less signs of dehydration. However sensitive indicators of dehydration maybe:
  • Weight loss
  • Inadequate stooling
  • Sleepy baby
  • Jaundice
  • Fever

Hypotonia/Hypertonia is a condition of diminished/increased muscle tone of the oropharyngeal structures in the baby's mouth leading to an uncoordinated or weak suck. This is commonly noticed in the condition of down-syndrome.

Craniosacral Biodynamics treatment for supporting your breastfeeding journey

When your baby is unable to breastfeed, this presents a huge challenge. When you experience pain or when your breastfeeding isn't going as per your expectation, you may be at risk of prematurely weaning your baby.

Biodynamic Craniosacral Treatment (BCST) can be a great support to breastfeeding challenges. The treatment can enhance natural bonding, especially when there has been separation between the mother and baby during birth. The delicate nervous system of the baby and the mother at the time of birth can be impacted and traumatized by C-section, ventouse or forceps birth, and induced or augmented labor. ​

Separation between mother and baby due to unnatural birth can also be a cause for stress and trauma. BCST supports the resolution of birth trauma and helps manage the implications for the mother and baby during breastfeeding .

SUPPORTING THE MOTHER THROUGH FOR:​

  • Post-partum depression

  • Insomnia

  • Fatigue

  • Breast conditions such as abscess and engorgement

  • Trauma resolution of surgery and other interventions such as episiotomy ​

SUPPORTING THE BABY FOR:​

  • Plagiocephaly (Flattened head)

  • Misalignment along the spine

  • Sucking and feeding issues, which may also include a tongue tie condition

  • Torticollis (Difficulty in neck movement)

    Babies and mothers are usually treated together, where the baby would be in the mother’s arms and the practitioner will work on both the mother and the baby at the same time.​ To understand more about the treatment. READ HERE or Download the information booklet HERE


LGBT Breastfeeding

When you are a same gender sharing parenting, you may be experiencing conflicting emotions and lack of social support.. Communication and empowerment can go a long way in supporting your journey.

nourish & nurture extends support to you if you are part of the LGBT community as well.

Breastfeeding plan of care may deal with common concerns as well as complex breastfeeding issues as listed below

  • Can I breastfeed my adopted baby?

  • I just delivered, my baby cries all the time. Is my baby getting enough milk?

  • Why is my baby suddenly nursing all through the day and night?

  • My baby refuses to latch and rejects me. I feel I am not a good mother. Can you help?

  • What is supplementing at breast mean?

  • My doctor says I don’t have enough milk & I should top feed with formula milk. What can I do?

  • My baby has green stools. Is something wrong with my milk?

  • Will I be able to exclusively breastfeed my baby while I return to work?

  • Doctor says I have breast abscess. How can I continue breastfeeding?

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