很多的誤解,像是
早產兒或是先天性心臟病的孩子,瓶餵比親餵省力⋯
孩子很「懶」所以不肯認真吸⋯
This video is of a baby born at 35 weeks gestation, now 5 weeks old. The mother is breastfeeding and supplementing with a bottle. The video shows that the widely held notion that breastfeeding “tires out the baby” is false. Babies respond to milk flow. In this video, when the milk flow slowed, the baby started to fall asleep and the video starts with the baby essentially asleep and not sucking. When the flow is increased by supplementation with a lactation aid at the breast, the baby wakes up and sucks vigorously. The video illustrates two related realities: 1. That young babies respond to milk flow and tend to fall asleep when the flow slows (older babies may pull away from the breast when the flow slows) and 2. Babies don’t “transfer” milk, mothers transfer milk. The baby, of course, does his part, which is to stimulate the breast that the mother “transfers” milk.
The above becomes obvious, I think, when we imagine a baby waking up from a sleep and perhaps starting to cry. Many mothers would have a milk ejection reflex (letdown reflex) and the front of their blouse would become wet. So who transfers milk? Obviously, the mother. The baby, of course, does his part, letting the mother he’s hungry, but it’s the mother who transfers the milk.
What are some of the implications?
1.Breastfeeding is not tiring for the baby. Babies respond to milk flow.
2.Babies (whether full term, babies with cardiac problems, premature babies) do not use up more energy breastfeeding than they do bottle feeding.
3. It is not easier for the baby to feed from a bottle than from the breast. Too often pediatricians, pediatric cardiologists, tell mothers not to breastfeed because it takes too much work for the baby to breastfeed and it’s better to bottle feed.
4.Babies don’t need “strong” muscles in their cheeks to breastfeed. Said to be the reason that “near term” babies have difficulties breastfeeding.
5.Babies are not “lazy”. They respond to milk flow.
6.We teach a technique we call “breast compression” to increase the transfer of milk from the mother to the baby. It works very well quite often. The technique helps the mother transfer milk to the baby.
7.And why would breast compression help? Because the baby isn’t doing his part as well as he could. And the reason? The baby’s not as well latched on as well as he could be. And why is the baby not latched on as well as he could be? 1.“Technique” of positioning and latching the baby on 2. Use of artificial nipples such as bottles and nipple shields and 3. The baby has a tongue tie. Recently we saw a baby of 3 days of age with a very tight tongue tie. Before the release of his tongue tie, the baby was getting almost no milk from the breast. After the release of the tongue tie, the increase in the amount of milk the baby received from the breast was dramatic. For this reason, tongue ties should be released early, before the mother’s milk supply reduces. How I wish we had filmed this baby.
Search