Breastfeeding- A Mother's Perspective

Submitted by Aakriti Gupta

“I think my baby isn’t satisfied with the feed”, “S/he keeps crying all the time out of hunger”, “it has just been half an hour of breastfeeding and my baby is again hungry”, “my breast feels empty, I think I have low milk flow, how do I keep up with my baby’s need”, “how do I breastfed babies in public, he/she should be habitual of bottle milk”. Do these questions sound familiar?

Yes, you guessed it right these were the set of worries of all the nursing mothers I was paranoid about when I started to breastfeed my daughter. For the first one and a half months, I did give her a combination of breast milk and baby formula, until my doctor assured me and guided me of how to keep up with the frequent breastfeeding for my child.

Breastfeeding practices has most of the times been a controversial aspect of a new mother who struggles with misconceptions, challenges and myths that our society has to offer. The day we become breastfeeding mother, we are handed a list of traditional things to eat and a set of do’s and don’ts to follow which we barely question.

Thanks to the ever-increasing social platform where we as new breastfeeding mom are opening up about our difficulties and are ready to do whatever it takes to nourish our newborn. I’m here just to help you moms with my personal experience and the research I did in order to exclusively breastfeed my baby. However, it is best for one to reach out to a lactation consultant for the best results.

Though family support is the utmost when it comes to the overall nurturing of the mother and the baby, following are a few tips that helped me in lactation.

1. Drink at least 3-4 glasses of warm milk. It can be in the form of porridge or kheer or a simple glass of milk it is going to aid you with a good supply of breast milk. Make sure you take a glass before you go to bed (you have to keep up the night feeds) and a glass when you wake up in the morning. The calcium in milk is only going to help relieve of the pains that you may incur in future.
2. Drink lots of warm water. Believe it or not but milk supply is directly proportional to the amount of water intake you have during the day. And it will also help you in keeping your body alkaline by flushing out the acid.
3. Increase the frequency of meals and decrease the amount of food you eat during one meal. This means that eat short regular meals in small quantities.
4. Eat the panjiris and the laddoos that your mom or granny made for you. Yes, they help a lot as they are rich in cumin and ding (goondh) which have lactation increasing components and makes the bones stronger.
5. Eat green veggies, bottle guard (lauki or doodhi) as much as you can. Not only do they boost the milk but also are light on your digestive system after the delivery.
6. Dairy products like milk and fresh curd (not the refrigerated one) are the ingredient that works great for breast milk supply.
7. Herbal lactating teas available in the market are also great supplements if you want to limit the amount of milk in your diet. Mamaearth’s ‘Mama’s Milk Tea’ did wonders for me and I swear by it.

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Breastfeeding is ultimately a mother’s choice and no mother should be judged if she chooses to formula feed or breastfed infants. There are mothers who are unable to lactate with whatsoever reason and we need to support and encourage them, instead of shaming them.

It is all about providing the best for our babies and giving them all the nutrition they deserve.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mom Store

Aakriti Gupta, a Gold Medalist in Journalism from Dayalbagh Educational Institute is a teacher by profession and a stay at home mom by choice and now pursuing Content Writing. She enjoys spirituality as much as she enjoys food. With a love for traveling she has been to mountains, beaches, plateaus and deserts. Staged Photos is one way in which she unleashes her creativity. She resides in NCR with her assistant professor husband and an innocently cute darling daughter.