Following the series of entries in which we talk about some of the best known myths related to breastfeeding Today we are going to talk about one closely related to breastfeeding on demand.
There are many people who are clear that the breast is given on demand, that is, when the baby asks for it. However, these same people can say that, although we have to give it to demand, you have to space the shots little by little (you have to change the demand of the baby) to, among other things, give breasts time to fill, confusing to notice the full breast with a good milk production (and confusing the mother).
Confusing the mother?
So is, confusing the mother. At first, during the first days and weeks it is normal for a mother to notice that the breasts are filled, that they are larger and harder than normal and that there is "fresh milk" waiting to leave. However, it is also normal for a mother to explain that she does not notice the climbs, that they are not getting too hard, but that her baby is growing and getting fat.
This is usually due to the fact that the coupling between the baby's demand and the mother's supply is very balanced, with no more milk being stored than the baby requires. When two or three months pass, when the so-called three-month crisis or three-month growth outbreak comes, many mothers fail to notice the turgidity in the breasts, the drip, the rise, by a simple tuning between the produced and the demanded.
It is at that time when the mother should know (or the mother should be told) that it is something perfectly normal, that the breast does not need to be leaking all day, with leftover milk, and that is why it enters a state of less stress . That is, finally the chest has blended with the baby and there is no longer so much risk of accumulated excess milk, that there are too hard areas in the chest (engorgement) or worse, that you suffer from mastitis.
If the mother asks, usually doubting why she feels that she now has less milk, the answer should come from knowledge, knowing that this happens, and from the empirical data: the child is weighed and, if she is getting fat, it is usually clear that, despite noticing the "looser" breasts that after giving birth the mother is producing more milk than then.
"What you have to do is space the shots to allow time to fill"
So, if a mother asks, she runs the risk of receiving in response the myth that says that the ideal at that time is wait for breasts to fill. Of course, if a mother waits, if she spaces the shots, there comes a time when the breast hardens again, remembering old sensations. The problem is that what may seem like a solution, because the mother feels again a few weeks ago, is actually the beginning of a new problem: The more you space the shots, the less milk you will produce.
I present to FIL
Perhaps if all the people who recommend waiting for the chest to fill up meet the FIL, they would explain things differently. Perhaps they would have very clear that you do not have to wait for anything, that you do not have to look at the clock (the clocks, in comparison with humanity, were invented yesterday), but simply let the baby ask and suck when you need it.
He FIL is a hormone that is produced along with milk. His full name is Feedback Inhibitor of Lactation and its mission is, as it is deduced by its name, to inhibit the production of breast milk, to make the woman stop producing it. Thus explained it seems that it is a "malignant" hormone, because all mothers want to have plenty of milk for their little ones, however, it is a tremendously useful hormone and, in the background good, because it comes into action when required (weaning directed for the mother, if you have to stop breastfeeding one of the two breasts, when a baby dies at birth, etc.), precisely to do what you do best: wipe out the milk.
As I say, FIL is produced along with milk and only comes into action when it is in the chest. If the baby sucks on demand and takes breast milk, the FIL is taken with him and stops being there. If instead a baby stops breastfeeding (the mother is weaning, or has started working) or if she starts breastfeeding by spacing the schedules, as indicated by the myth we are treating today, the FIL is more time in the chest, along with the milk that waits to be extracted, and it is indicating to the mother's brain that, as it is (the FIL) staying longer in the chest, less milk must be produced.
In other words, if the child always empties his chest and takes the milk with the FIL, milk production will increase. It does not matter that in one take it takes from one breast and the other does not, because when it makes the next take of the other breast the FIL will also be taken and the production will increase based on the requirements of each moment. If instead the child is sucking more spacedly, to wait for the chest to fill, the inhibitor will have more time to work and slow down production, being the consequence that every time it costs more to reach the state of "full and hard chest".
Then, as production will decrease, it will be the mother who will have to choose between continuing to heed the instructions she has received or not and continue breastfeeding the baby when she asks for it. The problem is that to decide to ignore it, you have to know that the decrease in milk is due to having waited, and many times this is ignored, and it is believed that the reduction comes despite having followed the advice. Come on, it is believed that the advice was valid, because the chest was getting harder, but that "the problem was already irremediable, because in a matter of days the child had to be given a bottle."
At that time, as I usually say, when a child cries and cries of hunger it is much more comfortable and quick to pour 30 ml of water and a ladle of milk into the bottle to have him complaining a day or two because he wants mom to produce more milk. Hence the bottle arrives, normally, to end breastfeeding.
