Making and keeping up your milk supply
Did you know? Introducing commercial milk formula can decrease your milk supply because you are skipping a nursing session each time you use these products.
Your first milk (colostrum) is thick and golden. Early milk comes in very small amounts—yet is full of nutrients and proteins that boost your baby’s immune system.
Your milk will change over the first 3–5 days into larger amounts of mature milk, which has more water to satisfy your baby’s thirst.
When the amount of milk increases, it is often called your milk “coming in.” This is misleading because you do have milk for your baby before that, it is just smaller amounts of colostrum.
Move it or lose it
• You must remove milk from your body very often to make a full supply of milk • If milk is not removed from your body, your brain doesn't get the message to make more milk • You can use gentle massage with hand expression and/or pumping to remove milk (and keep making milk) if you are separated from your baby
Tonya’s Story At first, Tonya didn’t want to breastfeed because she had heard it could hurt. But with all the health benefits for her baby and herself, she decided to try. After her baby was born, she did try, and just as she expected, it did hurt her nipples a bit. Her lactation consultant and peer counselor helped to find the source of the pain and make changes to lower the discomfort. This helped, but then a few days postpartum she felt pain in both breasts. Again, she got help from a skilled support person and was able to stick with it. In a couple of weeks all the discomforts were gone and never came back. Tonya is still breastfeeding at a year out and is very happy she continued – the discomfort in the beginning was worth it!
14 A guide to welcoming your new family member
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