MotherBreastFeeding.com

Of course all the ladies know that alcohol and breastfeeding are incompatible, but not all ladies know why. So, here are some reasons:

1. Alcohol and breastfeeding are incompatible because of a serious mechanism of breastfeeding.

First of all while breastfeeding two types of hormones are produced: prolactin and oxytocin. Prolactin promotes milk production, and oxytocin is responsible for the milk to enter the nipple, after which your baby gets food. If you drink alcohol, the level of prolactin increases while the quantity of oxytocin decreases. As a result, your breasts are full of milk, but the baby has to suck much harder in order to get it, because it hardly enters trough the nipples. Most problems with breastfeeding begin usually at this very stage, when breast milk does not escape from the breast.

2. Alcohol and breastfeeding are incompatible also because even when you drink only glass of wine it still gets to the organism of your child with milk. The child’s liver is so small that it is not capable to digest alcohol in any quantities as a result it can cause great problems to your baby’s health.

Today I have read some odd piece of news. It was written about one lady who stopped breastfeeding her child only when he was six years old. She has been breastfeeding him in public until he was three, and continued doing it in private till he was six years old. Such information a bit puzzled me. I could not judge for myself whether it is good or bad. I have not decided till this moment.

On the one hand, breastfeeding is a very useful food for every organism especially for a young one. It contains all the necessary vitamins and elements which help a child to become a healthy and strong person.
But on the other hand our society seems to make us think that such a long breastfeeding is not normal and even freakish. People do not have a great approval of such a long-termed breastfeeding. For example, I do not know whether my husband would like the fact that his rather big son is still drinking mother’s milk. I really doubt that he would like it. And I also would feel uncomfortable when my baby would ask me to breastfeed him somewhere in public, for example when I will be taking the child from the school or kindergarten.

As every woman I took my pregnancy with all seriousness and started to check information about everything which concerns pregnancy, childbirth, and first years of child’s life.

I understood that breastfeeding is one of the most serious and vital things in child’s life. But before I started learning information I planed to feed my child only during a month or so and then to give up doing this so that to safe the good form of my breast. But I have found a lot of information which made me change my mind.

So the things which made me change my mind are some advantages of breastfeeding. Here are they:

1. One of the greatest advantages of breastfeeding is the fact that woman’s milk is unique in its composition and no other formulas contain all the same components as milk does. That is why not giving a baby your milk you are depriving him material which is of a vital importance for his life.
2. Mother’s milk contains such important things as nutrient materials (specially created by your body for child’s organism) and antibodies giving your child a chance to resist different illnesses.
3. Moreover advantages of breastfeeding are not only important for your baby but for you as well. Thinking that refusing breastfeeding you will do well to your breast or body, you are completely wrong. I have found out that breastfeeding helps a lady to loose around five hundreds of calories everyday, so you will come back to your previous shapes much faster.

Here I would like to continue telling about common myths about breastfeeding.

4. One more myth about breastfeeding is: "If a mother was fed not by breast in her childhood, she can’t breastfeed her child long".

This is nonsense. The statistics shows that mothers who were breastfed have the same chances to breastfeed their child long as the mothers who were breastfed in the childhood. Almost the women have the same opportunities for breastfeeding.

5. "Breastfeeding makes a mother be too dependant from a child. She can’t have the same lifestyle as she had, she has to refuse going to her friends or to work

It is too naive to think that with the birth of a child nothing will change in your life. Of course, you will have to devote more time to home and less time to other things. This is the question of priorities, and not of breastfeeding. Lots of working and at the same time breastfeeding women say that if you organize the process of nursing correctly, you will have no problems with your other interests and duties.

Each woman knows that when she is pregnant or has a small baby she is hearing a great number of different advices from relatives, friends, doctors and other people. An interesting fact is that most of this information about breast feeding, birth, diseases and other things is rather contradictory. So, here are some myths about breast feeding.

1. ‘Breastfeeding - it's something incredibly difficult; all are mothers always have a lot of problems and some solid inconveniences with it.’

Of course, this is not true. There is nothing more pleasant, easy, cheap and natural thing than breastfeeding. But in order this process to be so easy and pleasant; you have to learn how to organize this process correctly. Looking for best teacher in question about breast feeding, you should not choose a book, magazine, a special movie, but choose a woman who has been breastfeeding her baby about a year and got only positive emotions from this process. She will teach you how to do everything right.

2. ‘Only a lady with a very big quantity of milk can breastfeed her child for a rather long period and this is always a great tournament.’

Fortunately, this is also not true. In fact only 3 percent of women have problems with lactation and that is why have to start giving formulas at the first months of child’s life, all the rest 97% of women are capable for breastfeeding as long as they wish. If the process of breastfeeding is properly organized its duration depends only upon the physiological resources of a woman and normal lactation will not fade away itself before 1 year and 3 months.

3. The child who was breastfed during a long period is more dependant of his mother; he is not capable for independent behavior.

But the statistics says completely contradictory thing. Children who were breastfed during a long period have received so much confidence and reliability from the breastfeeding that they explore the unfamiliar place much faster than other children and are quicker in salvation of different everyday problems.

These are only some of the myths about breast feeding, but as you see all of them are completely concocted by mothers looking for excuse for not breastfeeding their children.