My last post was about the bad breastfeeding advice women so often receive from health care providers, including lactation consultants that work with new mothers in the hospital regularly. The comments I received made me realize that there is, unfortunately, a lack of understanding of the basics of breastfeeding in many moms, and a wide lack of proper support for these new mothers. Without gaining knowledge themselves, or receiving help from those who do have it, it is very difficult for moms to have successful breastfeeding experiences.
Thanks to Stork Stories Blog , Melissa from Luna Lactation, and Jo Martin at I Want to Breastfeed, I’ve been put on to a plethora of resources for breastfeeding mothers. I want to share some of these resources in order to help mothers who want to breastfeed their babies but may not have the proper support to do so successfully. It’s not much, but any little step to spread accurate information and help find local support is a step in the right direction for moms who want to breastfeed.
The International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners has released a video that addresses some of the problems we have discussed. We need qualified lactation consulants, spread of evidence-based information to mothers who wish to breastfeed, and proper support for mothers to work through breastfeeding challenges and continue breastfeeding for longer periods of time. This is a great short video on these topics.
Best for Babes is a great sight for promoting breastfeeding and finding resources to do so succesfully. It also helps moms avoid the “booby traps” of breastfeeding!
KellyMom is a great site that’s full of articles that address commonly asked questions about breastfeeding, such as pregnancy and breastfeeding/tandem nursing, what is and isn’t safe when breastfeeding, and herbs when breastfeeding. It also has tons of parenting articles covering a variety of topics and forums to discuss breastfeeding and parenting issues with other moms.
Dr. Jack Newman’s website offers lots of breastfeeding help, including informative and clear breastfeeding videos. Videos really helped me out in those early days (and nights) of figuring out how to get my son to latch and nurse effectively.
Finally, we certainly can’t forget La Leche League International as a great place to find local support and tons of breastfeeding resources for mothers and providers, including publications, links, breastfeeding education, and answers to various nursing questions (including breastfeeding and the law).
This is just a small start, but I hope to keep adding breastfeeding websites to my resource page as I go. It’s a tiny step to improving the information mothers get on breastfeeding. Please feel free to add other resources that you know of in the comment section.
the birth bug 