Many mothers are often faced with the problem of breastfeeding babies with cleft lip or palate. These babies are unable to latch on to the breast properly and subsequently have to be bottle-fed. But researches have shown that a cleft lipped baby can be breastfed if it is held to the breast properly and the mother squeezes her breast occasionally to help the flow of milk to the baby’s mouth. However, if you really need to give supplementary feed to the baby then it is better to use a cup and spoon rather than using bottles. If the baby gets used to bottle feeding it will weaken its capacity for breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding is recognized as a possible method for preventing pregnancy. It is often found that a suckling mother continues to be non-pregnant up to two years or three without the use of any contraceptives. It is totally safe for a breast feeding mother to have sex during the first six months of child birth provided she did not have a menstrual cycle since child birth. However, even after six months it is relatively safe to have sex up to two years, without contraceptives, for a mother whose breast feeding is exclusive.
However many women prefer to adopt contraceptive methods such as birth control pills to ensure 100% protection against pregnancy during breastfeeding. Taking birth control pills is a good method, but the estrogen in some of the pills decreases milk supply, which even though is insignificant may lower the flow rate of the milk, making the baby feel uneasy. However, this problem can be solved to an extent if the mother takes pills which do not have estrogen.
Mothers with small breasts produce about the same quantity of milk that a mother with bigger breasts produces. Some times it is found that small breasted mothers produce more milk than big breasted mothers. It depends on the health and physical condition of the mother.
Finally, the mothers can continue to bring up the baby solely on the breastfeeding milk even after the baby becomes six moths old. If any other milk is to be given it could be cow milk rather than any other formula milk available in the market. However, the baby could be trained to eat after six months by introducing it to some solid food. It will help the baby to supplement any iron deficiency as the iron content in the mother’s milk is usually depleted after seven or eight months of breast feeding.
Posted on February 3rd, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Baby, Breastfeeding, Toddler
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