Breastfeeding and Anxious Mothers

January 26th, 2008 by admin

Breastfeeding by new mothers is sometimes a trying activity. Even after successfully nursing one baby, difficulty can arise with later children (I know — my wife had trouble feeding our third and for a long time blamed herself for subsequent failure to thrive that was related to other medical issues).

It falls to the nurse in the maternity units to start moms off on the right (foot?). Patient education, finding the right accommodations to facilitate success, and emotional support are all important parts of the picture.

This article on anxious mothers and breastfeeding provides a good picture of why this may be one of the most important nursing activities on the maternity unit and beyond in the pediatric practice. The study looked at 28,000 new mothers both immediately post-partum and 6 months later.

The researchers found that anxiety over whether they produced enough milk and overall depression had a profound impact on success and whether the mothers eventually supplemented with, or switched entirely to formula feedings.

If you work on a unit that comes in contact with new mothers, what steps can you take to improve the mother’s confidence in her ability to provide food for her baby via breast milk?

You can leave your thoughts and comments here at the comments link below or email me here at comments@nursingshow.com.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 11:34 am and is filed under education, pediatrics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 response about “Breastfeeding and Anxious Mothers”

podmedic said:
January 27th, 2008 at 5:30 am
I got this comment in from Marlene:

“First, being able to nurse immediately after birth, to a mom who does not have any drugs on board is the best start for a healthy nursing relationship. Having prolonged skin to skin contact helps too.

Second, it is important to have mom and baby in close proximity, so that mom quickly learns to identify little signs of the growing urge to nurse, before the baby gets to the full blown crying stage. As many procedures as possible should be performed right there next to mom.

Ideally, the baby should not be separated from the mom at all. When this is not possible, separations should be as short and far between as possible. No bottles or pacifiers should be given routinely. Only with medical necessity.

Next, don’t be always looking over the mom’s shoulder to make sure she’s doing it right. This makes her nervous and less likely to have a let down. But do unobtrusively see that the baby is latched on right.

Any traumatic deliveries, can get the bones of the head out of place, more than the normal molding allows. A Chiropractic adjustment may be needed to achieve optimal latch, esp. after a C/S, vag. breech, ventous or foreceps delivery, but even natural deliveries can sometimes be traumatic.

I breastfed all my seven children, and have a 95% breastfeeding success rate for 6 months or longer among the women who’s births I attend following the midwifery model of care.”

Thanks for contributing to the discussion here at the Nursing Show.