I had ZERO luck in breast feeding my first child. There were so many things that factored into it. First, he was born with severely low blood sugar (20...normal is 65-90), so the nurses in the NICU fed him formula for the first 6 hours of his life. He was still hungry of course, so they promply brought him to me to breast feed as this is the method I chose as his main source of nurishment. A lactation nurse came to my room and tried to help get my son to latch onto my breast but he just wouldn't take to it. She tried rigging up an apporatice that looked like tiny PVC tubing taped to my breast; one end attached to sirange full of formula, and the other end taped down to the tip of my nipple. This seemed odd to me...but hey, I had no idea what the hell I was doing. Does any first time mom? This method failed too, so out of frustration and the needs of my son, we began feeding him formula. I started using my electric breast pump to stimulate my milk flow...barely anything came. Days and days went by...next to nothing. Finally! Milk arrived 10 days after I gave birth but in minimal quantities. I attempted to feed what I could get out of my breasts to my son, but he promptly projectile vomitted it each time we did this. That was it! He officially became a formual fed baby. And...THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! So many women are made to feel like failures just because they can't or choose not to feed their babies from their breasts. It's a choice and sometimes it just doesn't happen for particular reasons, like me. No big deal! Who am I to judge?
So, now that I'm pregnant with my second child almost 9 years after this first experience, I'm again feeling like I want to try breast feeding...or a least try to express milk from my breasts to feed to our new baby in a bottle. So, I started researching some ways to help increase the flow of breast milk, since this seemed to be the main reason why I wasn't able to breastfeed the first time. I found a great recipe from the book,
The Complete Book of Essential Oils & Aromatherapy by Valerie Ann Worwood. So, here it goes:
Here's what you need:
Here's what you do:
- Massage the breasts in a circular movement, starting under the arms, working inward and downward and then up between the cleavage.
- Do this once a day, remembering to wash the oil off before feeding your baby.
**Remember! Essential oils cannot solve all breastfeeding problems, but they are sure worth a try! Good luck my friends!
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