Not only is breastfeeding a positive and rewarding experience, studies also show that breast milk is the ideal nutrition for your growing baby.
Mary Beth Sweet, BS, IBCLC, Lactation Program Coordinator at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, discusses the virtues of breastfeeding and Henry Mayo's lactation services. She also answers questions about the milk depot that accepts breast milk donations.
Selected Podcast
The Amazing Benefits of Breast Feeding
Featured Speaker:
Mary Beth Sweet, BS
Mary Beth Sweet manages our lactation clinic and is the hospital’s “Baby-Friendly” project manager. Transcription:
The Amazing Benefits of Breast Feeding
Melanie Cole: How you feed your baby is one of the most important decisions that any mother can make. My guest today is Mary Beth Sweet. She's a lactation program coordinator at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Welcome to the show. Let's talk about the health benefits first of breastfeeding. It comes in and out of vogue and then people learn about these amazing benefits. Tell us about them.
Mary Beth Sweet, BS, IBCLC: We know that when babies are fed breast milk exclusive for the first six months that there is a decreased risk of diarrhea, ear infections, respiratory infections, even lice, obesity, diabetes, leukemia and certain childhood cancers. When we also talk about moms that are continuing to breastfeed, they receive benefits too. There's less risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes later in life and quicker weight loss when they continue to breastfeed.
Melanie: We've talked about the health of the mother and the baby. Is breastfeeding something that you want mothers to be, to start planning for or is it something that just happens?
Mary: I think prenatal education is really the key, really trying to identify resources prenatally. Education is really pivotal; making that decision before you have the baby is very important. We do a really great job here at our hospital in trying to prepare our mothers for breastfeeding.
Melanie: The baby’s born, so now what? Who helps a new mother learn to breastfeed and is it always just that easy?
Mary: We have a full comprehensive lactation program here at the hospital. We offer bedside positioning and latch and education to help those mothers who may be experiencing some difficulty. It is challenging often in the first few days of life when we've got babies that are having difficulty latching. Those babies may need a little bit more help after hospital discharge and that’s where our outpatient lactation services come into as well.
Melanie: How does a mother know how often to nurse and are there some signs that the baby’s hungry that might be different than formula feeding?
Mary: Even with our formula feeding babies, we always want to teach mothers how to respond to those infant feeding cues. Responding too when babies are cueing by sucking their hands, looking towards their stimulus as the baby is wrapped in a swaddle blanket if they're trying to turn their head, latching onto the mothers when they're holding their babies skin to skin, they're bobbing their head up and down. Paying attention to those feeding cues and not waiting for babies to cry is really important, so we want to pay attention to those early feeding cues. The recommendation is that babies should be fed at least eight or more times in 24 hours and we want to pay attention to those feeding cues. If the baby happens to sleep longer than three hours, we would encourage those mothers to wake their babies.
Melanie: We've heard that phrase ‘never wake a sleeping baby,’ but it’s different when you're really trying to feed your baby, so how do you know if the baby is getting enough milk?
Mary: One of the things we teach our mothers is what goes in must come out, tracking the amount of baby's wet and soiled diapers. Usually, by day five, babies should get somewhere in the neighborhood of six to eight wet diapers in 24 hours and at least three to ten yellow seedy stools. That would be a good sign that baby is well hydrated and being well nourished at the breast.
Melanie: Are there certain positions that you teach moms or is it whatever is most comfortable? Tell us about positioning and some of the difficulties that some new moms might have when they're breastfeeding.
Mary: Positioning leads to the ideal latch, so we want to make sure that the baby is in proper alignment at the breast. Of course, comfort is always important. Some babies will feed better in a certain positioning and there's a couple positions in the early days that we like. The football hold, the mother has a little bit more head control of the baby; there's that traditional cradle hold that you see displayed in magazines and media; sideline positioning is a great position for moms who are doing frequently feedings at night, both moms and babies are able to get the rest that they need. As far as the latch goes, we do want to make sure that the baby is taking in a good amount of breast tissue and just not the tip of the nipple where that can contribute to sore nipples and inadequate milk removal from the breast.
Melanie: Do you hear frustrations from any new moms or even from new fathers about being involved and how do you tell the new fathers to be involved?
Mary: Like I said before, there can be quite a few challenges in the early days and weeks with breastfeeding. We would like to try to instill that confidence. We do have, like I mentioned, the outpatient lactation center where we would encourage mothers and fathers to come and learn how to breastfeed their babies and tackle some of those challenges that may occur in those early days and weeks with our weekly breastfeeding support group. The more help that we’re able to offer to these moms really helps to instill the confidence. We teach the dads how to come and soothe the babies. One act of feeding, dads may want to introduce a bottle at four to six weeks to help with feedings, we would like to wait until the breastfeeding is well established before introducing an artificial nipple, but we do encourage the dads to participate in other baby care activities; changing the baby, taking the baby for walks, bathing the baby, so that mom can get a little bit more rest.
Melanie: What about the milk depot that accepts breast milk donations At Henry Mayo? Tell us a little bit about that?
Mary: We're really trying to bring community awareness about the importance of donor breast milk. In our NICU here at the hospital, we do have donor milk for those babies whose mothers are not able to produce enough breast milk. It's really a medicine for the tiny patients that we have here. There are so many benefits of the breast milk that we discussed earlier. For mothers that have an overabundance or an oversupply of breast milk or maybe for a mother that has been pumping breast milk for maybe a sick child who has expired, what does she do with that breast milk? We partner with the San Jose Milk Bank and these mothers are screened and they go through blood testing very similar to donating blood and that milk is then transported to the San Jose Milk Bank and distributed to hospitals that are in need of that donor milk.
Melanie: What about healthy eating while you're breastfeeding? Are there certain things that you like to teach moms about the ways they should eat or alcohol or spicy foods? Is there anything they should watch out for?
Mary: That’s a great question. We have women that breastfeed from a variety of cultures. We wouldn’t want them to definitely start eliminating things from their diet because they were continuing to eat those foods during their pregnancy. Things they want to make sure is obviously that the mother is well hydrated. She should be drinking about 8 to 10 glasses of water a day. We want to make sure that those moms are including in their diet protein, carbohydrates, fruits, and vegetables. I don't really talk to moms about avoid foods unless there's a food that is causing the baby to have irritability, and that would be something that we would have to rule out as the baby moves on in terms of breastfeeding, but we don’t really tell moms to avoid any foods initially.
Melanie: Wrap it up for us with your best advice about the benefits of breastfeeding, your lactation services at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, what you want new parents to think about beforehand and what you want them to know about breastfeeding.
Mary: I would say gather as much education and resources before they have the baby so that if they do happen to run into some roadblocks along the way that they have already allocated where they can come for help and support; that help and support will really help these moms ultimately reach their breastfeeding goals.
Melanie: Thank you so much for being with us today. You're listening to It’s Your Health radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. For more information, please visit henrymayo.com. That’s henrymayo.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for tuning in.
The Amazing Benefits of Breast Feeding
Melanie Cole: How you feed your baby is one of the most important decisions that any mother can make. My guest today is Mary Beth Sweet. She's a lactation program coordinator at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Welcome to the show. Let's talk about the health benefits first of breastfeeding. It comes in and out of vogue and then people learn about these amazing benefits. Tell us about them.
Mary Beth Sweet, BS, IBCLC: We know that when babies are fed breast milk exclusive for the first six months that there is a decreased risk of diarrhea, ear infections, respiratory infections, even lice, obesity, diabetes, leukemia and certain childhood cancers. When we also talk about moms that are continuing to breastfeed, they receive benefits too. There's less risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes later in life and quicker weight loss when they continue to breastfeed.
Melanie: We've talked about the health of the mother and the baby. Is breastfeeding something that you want mothers to be, to start planning for or is it something that just happens?
Mary: I think prenatal education is really the key, really trying to identify resources prenatally. Education is really pivotal; making that decision before you have the baby is very important. We do a really great job here at our hospital in trying to prepare our mothers for breastfeeding.
Melanie: The baby’s born, so now what? Who helps a new mother learn to breastfeed and is it always just that easy?
Mary: We have a full comprehensive lactation program here at the hospital. We offer bedside positioning and latch and education to help those mothers who may be experiencing some difficulty. It is challenging often in the first few days of life when we've got babies that are having difficulty latching. Those babies may need a little bit more help after hospital discharge and that’s where our outpatient lactation services come into as well.
Melanie: How does a mother know how often to nurse and are there some signs that the baby’s hungry that might be different than formula feeding?
Mary: Even with our formula feeding babies, we always want to teach mothers how to respond to those infant feeding cues. Responding too when babies are cueing by sucking their hands, looking towards their stimulus as the baby is wrapped in a swaddle blanket if they're trying to turn their head, latching onto the mothers when they're holding their babies skin to skin, they're bobbing their head up and down. Paying attention to those feeding cues and not waiting for babies to cry is really important, so we want to pay attention to those early feeding cues. The recommendation is that babies should be fed at least eight or more times in 24 hours and we want to pay attention to those feeding cues. If the baby happens to sleep longer than three hours, we would encourage those mothers to wake their babies.
Melanie: We've heard that phrase ‘never wake a sleeping baby,’ but it’s different when you're really trying to feed your baby, so how do you know if the baby is getting enough milk?
Mary: One of the things we teach our mothers is what goes in must come out, tracking the amount of baby's wet and soiled diapers. Usually, by day five, babies should get somewhere in the neighborhood of six to eight wet diapers in 24 hours and at least three to ten yellow seedy stools. That would be a good sign that baby is well hydrated and being well nourished at the breast.
Melanie: Are there certain positions that you teach moms or is it whatever is most comfortable? Tell us about positioning and some of the difficulties that some new moms might have when they're breastfeeding.
Mary: Positioning leads to the ideal latch, so we want to make sure that the baby is in proper alignment at the breast. Of course, comfort is always important. Some babies will feed better in a certain positioning and there's a couple positions in the early days that we like. The football hold, the mother has a little bit more head control of the baby; there's that traditional cradle hold that you see displayed in magazines and media; sideline positioning is a great position for moms who are doing frequently feedings at night, both moms and babies are able to get the rest that they need. As far as the latch goes, we do want to make sure that the baby is taking in a good amount of breast tissue and just not the tip of the nipple where that can contribute to sore nipples and inadequate milk removal from the breast.
Melanie: Do you hear frustrations from any new moms or even from new fathers about being involved and how do you tell the new fathers to be involved?
Mary: Like I said before, there can be quite a few challenges in the early days and weeks with breastfeeding. We would like to try to instill that confidence. We do have, like I mentioned, the outpatient lactation center where we would encourage mothers and fathers to come and learn how to breastfeed their babies and tackle some of those challenges that may occur in those early days and weeks with our weekly breastfeeding support group. The more help that we’re able to offer to these moms really helps to instill the confidence. We teach the dads how to come and soothe the babies. One act of feeding, dads may want to introduce a bottle at four to six weeks to help with feedings, we would like to wait until the breastfeeding is well established before introducing an artificial nipple, but we do encourage the dads to participate in other baby care activities; changing the baby, taking the baby for walks, bathing the baby, so that mom can get a little bit more rest.
Melanie: What about the milk depot that accepts breast milk donations At Henry Mayo? Tell us a little bit about that?
Mary: We're really trying to bring community awareness about the importance of donor breast milk. In our NICU here at the hospital, we do have donor milk for those babies whose mothers are not able to produce enough breast milk. It's really a medicine for the tiny patients that we have here. There are so many benefits of the breast milk that we discussed earlier. For mothers that have an overabundance or an oversupply of breast milk or maybe for a mother that has been pumping breast milk for maybe a sick child who has expired, what does she do with that breast milk? We partner with the San Jose Milk Bank and these mothers are screened and they go through blood testing very similar to donating blood and that milk is then transported to the San Jose Milk Bank and distributed to hospitals that are in need of that donor milk.
Melanie: What about healthy eating while you're breastfeeding? Are there certain things that you like to teach moms about the ways they should eat or alcohol or spicy foods? Is there anything they should watch out for?
Mary: That’s a great question. We have women that breastfeed from a variety of cultures. We wouldn’t want them to definitely start eliminating things from their diet because they were continuing to eat those foods during their pregnancy. Things they want to make sure is obviously that the mother is well hydrated. She should be drinking about 8 to 10 glasses of water a day. We want to make sure that those moms are including in their diet protein, carbohydrates, fruits, and vegetables. I don't really talk to moms about avoid foods unless there's a food that is causing the baby to have irritability, and that would be something that we would have to rule out as the baby moves on in terms of breastfeeding, but we don’t really tell moms to avoid any foods initially.
Melanie: Wrap it up for us with your best advice about the benefits of breastfeeding, your lactation services at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, what you want new parents to think about beforehand and what you want them to know about breastfeeding.
Mary: I would say gather as much education and resources before they have the baby so that if they do happen to run into some roadblocks along the way that they have already allocated where they can come for help and support; that help and support will really help these moms ultimately reach their breastfeeding goals.
Melanie: Thank you so much for being with us today. You're listening to It’s Your Health radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. For more information, please visit henrymayo.com. That’s henrymayo.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for tuning in.