Man waxes lyrical about breasts shocker....
But I didn't actually mean in that way. You can take that way as read. But they are truly incredible things. I mentioned the part about how breasts can sense whether a baby is too hot or too cold and adjust accordingly in a previous posting. I wanted to write a bit about breastfeeding too.
We had a two hour class with a woman from the NCT. Although it was useful, both K___ and I felt that the instructor was not the world's greatest teacher. She started by getting us to write down what we wanted to know. We duly came up with a list of items and she discussed them. The problem with this is that it was therefore structured according to how we'd put things down onto a piece of paper, and not in a logical sequence. There was useful stuff, but it was got to via lots of digressions. Frankly, the whole thing could have been done in a structured way, in an hour.
So, breastfeeding then. It's the birthing of the placenta and the associated drop in progesterone, oestrogen and Human Placental Lactogen levels that triggers full on milk production. Breastfeeding starts with colostrum, a yellowy fluid that is full of antibodies, and a vital boost for the baby's immature immune system. This lasts for a few days, then the breasts will start to produce a runny milk, and it is produced on demand. Indeed, it is produced on demand to such an extent that if you were to substitute a bottle feed (even of expressed breast milk) for a regular feed, the breasts soon 'learn' that no milk is required during that time. Crazy man, crazy.
Baby's that are breastfed require no other liquids - no water. This is because the first part of a feed consists of very watery milk - like that produced in the first few days. After a week or so, the initial part of the milk is still watery (this is what refreshes the baby) and then followed up by the thicker (think full-fat, if you like) milk, that contains the bulk of the nutrients.
The constituency of the milk also changes as the baby develops - milk produced in the first month is different from milk produced in the fourth, say.
There are a thousand and one benefits to breastfeeding, and I certainly don't have room for more than a few here, but here's some cool ones:
But I didn't actually mean in that way. You can take that way as read. But they are truly incredible things. I mentioned the part about how breasts can sense whether a baby is too hot or too cold and adjust accordingly in a previous posting. I wanted to write a bit about breastfeeding too.
We had a two hour class with a woman from the NCT. Although it was useful, both K___ and I felt that the instructor was not the world's greatest teacher. She started by getting us to write down what we wanted to know. We duly came up with a list of items and she discussed them. The problem with this is that it was therefore structured according to how we'd put things down onto a piece of paper, and not in a logical sequence. There was useful stuff, but it was got to via lots of digressions. Frankly, the whole thing could have been done in a structured way, in an hour.
So, breastfeeding then. It's the birthing of the placenta and the associated drop in progesterone, oestrogen and Human Placental Lactogen levels that triggers full on milk production. Breastfeeding starts with colostrum, a yellowy fluid that is full of antibodies, and a vital boost for the baby's immature immune system. This lasts for a few days, then the breasts will start to produce a runny milk, and it is produced on demand. Indeed, it is produced on demand to such an extent that if you were to substitute a bottle feed (even of expressed breast milk) for a regular feed, the breasts soon 'learn' that no milk is required during that time. Crazy man, crazy.
Baby's that are breastfed require no other liquids - no water. This is because the first part of a feed consists of very watery milk - like that produced in the first few days. After a week or so, the initial part of the milk is still watery (this is what refreshes the baby) and then followed up by the thicker (think full-fat, if you like) milk, that contains the bulk of the nutrients.
The constituency of the milk also changes as the baby develops - milk produced in the first month is different from milk produced in the fourth, say.
There are a thousand and one benefits to breastfeeding, and I certainly don't have room for more than a few here, but here's some cool ones:
- The breastfeeding technique required of baby's develops the muscles required for speech (though not if dummy's are used)
- The chances of SIDS is reduced in breastfed children
- Breastfeeding causes the uterus to contact after birth, thus reducing bleeding after the birth
- Greatly increases calories used, helping burn off pregnancy weight
You mean that ladybumps are more than just male playthings/things to make you look good in a top?
ReplyDeleteYou are so right...they are truly amazing things.
ReplyDeleteBF'ing can be intimidating...but once you really get the hang of it...it's amazing. Like nothing else mum-2-be will ever experience!