Breastfeeding
The experience of breastfeeding is special for so many reasons, including:
- The joyful closeness and bonding with your baby
- The specific nutrition only you can provide
- The health benefits for you and your baby
- The cost savings
The decision to breastfeed is a personal one. As a new mom, you deserve support no matter how you decide to feed your baby.
Health Benefits for Your Baby
The cells, hormones, and antibodies in breast milk protect babies from illness. This protection is unique, and it changes to meet your baby's needs. Research suggests that breastfed babies have a lower risk of:
- Asthma
- Childhood leukemia
- Childhood obesity
- Ear infections
- Eczema (atopic dermatitis)
- Diarrhea & vomiting
- Lower respiratory infections
- Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
Breastfeeding keeps mother and baby close. Physical contact is important to newborns. It helps them feel more secure, warm, and comforted.
Health Benefits for You
Mothers also benefit from the closeness of skin-to-skin contact, also called Kangaroo Care, which boosts your levels of oxytocin, a hormone that helps breast milk flow and helps you feel more calm.
Breastfeeding helps your health and healing following childbirth. Breastfeeding may lower your risk of Type 2 diabetes, ovarian cancer and certain types of breast cancer.
Besides giving your baby nourishment and keeping your baby from becoming sick, breastfeeding may help you lose weight. Many women who breastfed their babies said it helped them get back to their pre-pregnancy weight more quickly, but experts are still looking at the effects of breastfeeding on weight loss.
Breastfeeding Compared to Formula Feeding
Formula can be harder for your baby to digest. For most babies, especially premature babies, breast milk substitutes like formula are harder to digest than breast milk. Formula is made from cow's milk, and it often takes time for babies' stomachs to adjust to digesting it.
Life can be easier for you when you breastfeed. At first, breastfeeding may seem like it takes a little more effort than formula-feeding, but it can make your life easier once you and your baby settle into a good routine.
When you breastfeed, there are no bottles and nipples to sterilize. You do not have to buy, measure and mix formula. And there are no bottles to warm in the middle of the night. When you breastfeed, you can satisfy your baby's hunger right away.
Not breastfeeding costs money. Formula and feeding supplies can cost well over $1,500 each year. Breastfed babies may also be sick less often, which can help keep your baby's health costs lower.
Need Help? Try Outpatient Lactation Consultant Services
Even after discharge, you can meet with a certified lactation consultant and receive support, advice and education to help resolve newborn breastfeeding issues related to:
- Slow weight gain, failure to thrive
- Difficulties latching on
- Yeast infection, clogged ducts, mastitis
- Engorgement, sore nipples
- Infant tongue thrust, tongue tie, etc.
- Mother's low milk supply
- Back-to-work questions
- Preterm infants
- Medications and breastfeeding
- Weaning
Ask your doctor for a referral for Outpatient Lactation Consultant Services. Appointments take place in Cabell Huntington Hospital’s Mother Baby Unit, Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. An appointment is required, and you must have a doctor’s order with a diagnosis. When possible, walk-ins referred from a physician’s office will be seen as time allows.
For more information or an appointment, please contact one of our lactation consultants at 304.526.2360.
Breastfeeding Support Group
The Breastfeeding Support Group is held the first Monday of every month from 6 to 8 p.m. This is a free online support group, and participants can access the meeting via Microsoft Teams using the information below.
Click here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 266 282 265 474 Passcode: WhqS5y