Breastfeeding is a tender time of connecting and nourishing your baby. But many women and babies have challenges in feeding. With help you can settle into breastfeeding that’s easy for your baby and painless for you.

How is breastfeeding going for you and your baby?

Breastfeeding, as part of nature’s design, is beautiful, but may not go perfectly. Birth can have major impacts on your baby that impede breastfeeding. These can be resolved with gentle bodywork. Mother’s bodies vary, and the breastfeeding relationship between you and your baby is unique. Personalized counsel and support for your baby can make the difference.

• Painful breastfeeding
• Poor latch
• Thrashing or fussing at breast
• Sleepy baby, on/off feedings
• Poor weight gain
• Inadequate milk production
• Weak suck
• One sided nursing or preference
• Prolonged, ineffective feeds
• Short, incomplete feeds
• Recurrent plugged ducts
• Mastitis

Complications from birth

Birth entails strong compression forces on your baby’s head, neck, and spine. This is true whether your baby went through vaginal birth or c-section delivery. While this is a natural aspect of birth, and your baby is extraordinarily resilient, some babies’ cranial bones are displaced enough to need help. If your baby has gone through a very prolonged or intense birth, a sudden arrival, forceps, vacuum, or c-sections, displaced cranial bones may interfere with her ability to latch, suck, or swallow. Birth trauma may also impede breastfeeding.

Poor latch, suck & swallow

Good latch, suck and swallow reflexes are each necessary for successful breastfeeding. A common problem of nursing is poor latch, when your baby’s mouth is not opened wide or his jaw is tight. Except for very premature babies, your newborn’s mouth is big enough to open for a good latch; yet his jaw may be too tight, creating a painful latch. Poor latch often results in poor suck; and then your baby gets little nourishment or requires much effort to nurse. Restrictions around cranial nerves for latch, suck, or swallow can impair your baby’s ability to nurse at all, or require so much work that he gets exhausted trying to feed.

Signs of poor latch are nipple pain that doesn’t ease up after the first few minutes of nursing, or if your baby pops off the breast, or falls asleep on the breast without seeming to take in much milk. If your nursing sessions are very long and frequent, while your baby has poor weight gain after the first week, this indicates poor milk supply that may be due to latch and suck problems.

Tongue tie, lip tie, and cheek tie

Some babies have restrictions in their mouths that seriously impede breastfeeding, affect milk production, and create extreme pain for mothers. If your baby has been assessed or diagnosed with tongue, lip or cheek ties, gentle integrative bodywork is recommended by pediatric dentists and IBCLC s.

Additional resources

Other newborn concerns