Tips to facilitate breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is a time that you can live with real pleasure and create a very special bond with your baby. However, there are women who, due to lack of information or bad practice, live with anguish and pain and this leads them to abandon breastfeeding. Breastfeeding does not have to hurt, nor cause any discomfort if done correctly. Breast milk has many benefits for mom and baby, so it is convenient to know some tricks to facilitate breastfeeding.

Tips and ideas to facilitate breastfeeding

Once the first moments of breastfeeding have passed, you will feel more confident and calm at the time of breastfeeding. Try to create a relaxed space where both enjoy the moment. The hospital or a house full of people orienting you in what you have to do will only contribute to getting more nervous. There are other tricks to facilitate breastfeeding that can also help you:

Avoid cracks and mastitis: in most cases the pain at breastfeeding is caused by bad posture or poor grip of the baby. If the baby has a good position and performs a correct suction, grasping the entire nipple with his mouth, it should not even hurt if you have a crack.

- Breast-feeding liners: some women resort to the use of liners to avoid discomfort, but they are not recommended since they shorten the duration of breastfeeding and are uncomfortable for the baby.

- The duration of the shots: each baby and each mother need a different time, and in addition, this varies according to the age of the baby. Newborns take longer to suckle, while babies who are a few weeks old are able to take a shot between 5 and 15 minutes. In general the pediatricians recommend not to be more than 20 minutes since the baby ends up using the nipple as a pacifier and falls asleep, so he stops sucking.

- Awaken the baby if it falls asleep to the breast: if your child tends to use the breast as a pacifier and falls asleep, you can use a simple trick to continue breastfeeding. It is about scratching the soles of his feet to wake him up. Babies do not like this feeling very much and it wakes them up to keep sucking.

- Position of the baby: the corporal contact between both and the comfort is fundamental for a good grip. A good position would be one in which the baby's tripita is in contact with yours and its body forms a straight line with the head. Your mouth has to grab the entire areola, not just the nipple, to avoid damage and cracks.

- One breast in each shot: do not try that in each take by system, the baby sucks from both breasts. It is better to empty a breast completely and, if you are still hungry, offer the other. You will notice that the chest is already empty because the tension in the breast has decreased considerably and the baby is released because there is no more milk. If you took one breast, in the next shot, offer it to the other to avoid accumulation of milk. To remember what was the chest of the last shot, there are tricks of breastfeeding such as tying a lazito in the bra strap or lighting a safety pin.

- Hygiene in breastfeeding: you do not need to wash your breast before and after each feeding. A trick that many mothers use during breastfeeding is to use the last drop of milk spreading it on the nipple to act as a protector for the nipple and thus prevent it from cracking, so it is best to let it dry in the air. With a daily shower is enough observar to observe good hygiene. If you use breastfeeding discs, change them often. - Save milk for another time

: if you have too much tension in your breasts or you are forced to skip a shot, you can use a breast pump and store the surplus in the fridge for 2 or 3 days and in a freezer for 3 months.