How To Increase Breast Milk In Mother

How To Increase Breast Milk In Mother

Mothers face lots of problems in feeding a baby. The most important among those is inadequate milk output. This is very important Article. We will see how to find inadequate milk secretion? how to increase breast milk in mother? What to do to improve milk output? What are the options if milk doesn't improve after all efforts? We will see everything in detail. what does increase breast milk

What to do to Increase Breast Milk

We face lot of mothers with problems of inadequate milk output. If there is really inadequate milk output, the struggle is a lot. First, how do parents say that milk is insufficient? Baby is crying a lot (But consolable) Initially baby used to feed for long time but now hardly 5 minutes. I feel my breast is empty most of the times. Less milk is expressed if I press my breast and see. Initially baby tummy seemed full now it looks flat these days. So mothers say decreased milk out based on all these. So how to increase breast milk in mother,

 But mothers who say these, usually will be having sufficient milk. We find this out by seeing the following, good weight gain Good urine output (more than 6-8 times per day), suck well from breast, Will have sound sleep after feeds (at least one deep long sleep per day) So these are our measures of milk adequacy. 

what are signs of low milk output? 

Poor weight gain, decreased urine output, excessive crying You cannot console the baby. Very difficult to manage cry and irritability. Next important thing, your relatives, grannies and others at your home whatever happens to your baby, if she cries, or is fussy or not sleeping, they will attribute it to only one thing "You don't have enough milk" Don't listen to them and get stressed. Tips to increase breast milk in mother

Tips Increase Breast Milk In Mother

IF milk secretion is really low then follow these tips, it will work for sure. I am saying this after treating hundreds of mothers with this issue. First, hydration. Mother must have adequate water content in body to make sure milk improves. To ensure this you can drink lots of water. But mostly what mom will do is they will be caring the baby so much that they will forget to take enough water. increase breast milk in mother,

 So drink adequate water. (Milk can also help with hydration; 1 to 1.5 L per day even) Second most important one is Food habits. Most important factor in improving your milk output. First for those who take non veg, Many mothers say that fish (Especailly "Palsura" in tamil), dried salted fish (Karuvaadu) improves milk significantly. Mutton, mutton leg soup can be tried. Other non veg items can be tried, milk will improve for sure. 

Next is fenugreek, soak it in water over night then next day morning, drink that water, if possible eat the fenugreek too. This can be added to other food stuffs and eaten. Next is garlic. Garlic improves milk well. Try to eat whole garlic without the skin, But you can take it in any form. Including garlic milk or any other food stuffs. Next is cumin water, similar to fenugreek, you can drink the water after soaking cumin over night in it. Or cumin boiled in water and then drinking the essence. Both are great. 

Also green leafy vegetables, everything that is green. especially many mom say that drumstick leaves improves milk. Next nuts, oats everything said to improve milk. But if it is not locally grown stuffs then these are not mandatory. Same results can be obtained from the commonly available groundnut. (All nuts are good) Regarding food, there is one important thing more important than all these. 

You need to eat well. Because you will not get time to eat because of baby care, and will not give any importance to your own diet. So give importance to food. Eat well and without hurry, happily. By chance if you are worried about putting on weight due to eating more, for now don't worry about that. After pregnancy there are tips to decrease weight which we will discuss in future. Next most important thing is SLEEP. 

Most babies will be crying a lot during night, mom will feed baby whole night and will not have sleep. Day time there will be other things like receiving relatives so no sleep. Ultimately most of mothers do not get any sleep at all. If no sleep then, milk will decrease, may even stop altogether. So PLEASE give importance to sleep and have adequate sleep. Since most babies sleep during day, so you try to sleep along with the baby. Night you will have time only to feed and care for the baby. So this is a MUST to follow matter. 

Next is to decrease STRESS (Very important) On one side baby will be crying even after feeding, you will be worried that you are not able to satisfy baby's hunger. On top of that, sometimes the people around us increase the stress by repeatedly saying "You don't have milk" and torture moms. So avoid all these stress. Stop stress, no tension, please don't worry. 

If stress increases, then it sends negative signal to brain, which decreases milk producing signal from brain. Which will decrease milk further. While feeding, do it in a calm place free of any disturbance. feed calmly, without any fear. Talk with the baby while feeding, cuddle her etc. All these can help. You must be saying to yourself "Milk will improve for sure" repeatedly. be confident. 

It WILL improve Last matter. The most important and powerful stimulation of milk secretion is Baby's suck itself. While sucking, when baby's lips touch nipple, there will be a signal to mom's brain resulting in secretion of prolactin and oxytocin hormones. These hormones will help improve milk significantly. This is the reason that few mothers will have milk flow even when baby cries. So make the baby suck as much as possible. 

Especially during first week of life. Doing this is very important. First few days after delivery, mom will not produce lot of milk. Especially day 1 after delivery when you will have only few drops. Then it gradually improves. It takes 1 week to get a good milk output. So baby suck stimulates this improvement So feed the baby whenever baby wakes. Don't wake up baby for feeds. But when baby is awake then try to feed before she cries. 

If you feeds after baby cries a lot then baby will expect fast flow of milk, but many mothers cant achieve this so baby starts to cry after few sucks due to excessive hunger. Just when baby is about to wake up, baby will have hunger cues like sucking their hand, active movements etc. So if you pick this up at this stage and start to feed, Baby will start to suck calmly, also won't cry, you feel less stressed, milk will also improve. 

Next there are few important things to discuss. For those mothers without any milk, baby will start to cry after sucking for sometime If baby continues to suck then it means there is some milk flow to the baby. If you squeeze your breast and see then you may not see any milk, the reason for this is, there is difference between pressing from outside and sucking effect by baby Also when baby sucks, new milk will be formed and baby will get that milk, Which doesn't happen while pressing from outside. 

Next, initially it may seem that baby is feeding for long time, because the muscle strength of those needed for feeding will be less. After 1 or 2 months, babies will wake up hungry, feed milk rapidly (around 5 min even) and then sleep again. Babies will take enough milk in this 5 minutes. So if baby gains weight adequately, then don't worry about duration of feeds. 

Next, if baby cries then its not only for milk or hunger can cry if sleepy, before and during urine and motion. Sometimes all will be right but baby will be bored so wants to be held so can cry. So in hand baby will immediately calm down and will be happy. So from this we can know that baby is not crying for feeds. And please don't decide adequacy of breast feeding on seeing tummy, Immediately after birth, abdomen muscles will be loose and hence tummy may seem full. But as baby grows, muscle tone will increase and tummy may seem flat. 

So this is a poor indicator whether milk is sufficient or not. So if you have followed all the tips till now and still if milk is not sufficient, only then we need to consider medications to increase milk. But these tablets are not magic tablets, it may not work perfectly for all moms Some moms may not have any improvement with these tablets. 

So according to me, if you are taking these tablets, observe for 1 week. If there is no improvement in milk out put even a bit then better to stop that tablet. Next, If these tablets must work then you must follow all the previous tips regarding food, sleep, stress etc. or else I m sure the tablet will not have its full effect. These tablets are called Lactogogues (or Galactogogues) Even after trying these if milk output is still low with poor weight gain, then we can consider formula feeds. Most parents will have doubts regarding formula feeds. 

What brand? How to give? How frequent? How much to give? Can we give cow milk? 

Why doctors don't recommend it? I will make about all these in future Article. If you have come this far in to the article, one special info for you. If mom becomes ill, like fever, cold, cough etc. There is a chance that the feed may decrease transiently. But this will improve soon. After delivery few mothers may have decreased secretion even foe few weeks to months and these mothers have successfully had better secretion after following these tips. So Please follow all these with confidence. There will be at least some improvement in secretion. Even if it is small improvement, we can definitely build up on it and improve secretion further. If you have any doubts regarding this topic, please ask in comment section. I will answer for sure.