Lactation Support
What We Believe
You (and your baby) were made for this.
There are very few reasons a woman absolutely cannot breastfeed–meaning most of the time, there is a way to solve the difficulty you are having. You and your baby are here, meaning you both come from a long line of women who made milk and babies who were able to feed at the breast. Amazing.
Babies are born with reflexes to help them open their mouths, to suck, and to swallow. These are the biggest components of feeding. Mothers learn how to make the most of these reflexes to support their baby with positioning, presentation of the breast, and recognizing subtle communications from their baby about their experience of feeding. There are so many ways to make breastfeeding a successful and fulfilling journey.
Ideas that Guide
lactation Support at Square one OT
Breastfeeding is a baby's occupation.
In occupational therapy, an “occupation” encompasses any meaningful way that time is spent. Occupations that people engage in influence our health and well being. For a baby, breastfeeding is for nourishment of not only their physical body, but also of their social emotional well-being. Breastfeeding is a way for babies to acclimate to life outside of their mother’s body. Feeding is a chance to practice and improve motor patterns that are carried forward throughout the body in development. Successful feeding is an activity and an exercise in motor refinement, sensory understanding, learning form and texture, social interaction, flexibility and curiosity, reciprocation, comfort.
Breastfeeding is really good for baby–but it’s really good for mama, too.
When a mother is able to successfully bring her baby to breast, many wonderful and important hormones flood her brain, giving both mother and baby feelings of peace and connection. Breastfeeding is a practice of attunement and attachment to your baby, creating a neurological feedback loop for a happy beginning. Mothers who are well are able to give loving care to their babies. Babies who are well loved grow into happy kids.
Mother and baby learn how to breastfeed.
Breastfeeding is natural, but there is still learning to do to help it go as smoothly as possible. Eighty-three percent of breastfeeding mothers report that they needed help at some point while nursing their child. The right support at the right time can make all the difference for your breastfeeding journey. It’s normal to need help with something you haven’t done before. Even if you have breastfed another child, this is your first time breastfeeding this baby, and their first experience of breastfeeding as well.
Breastfeeding is for food and for comfort.
It is well known that breastmilk has great benefits for the health of a baby, however we do not talk as much about the importance of the experiences at the breast. Babies soothe through sucking or suckling–this is the whole reason pacifiers exist. Before pacifiers, babies soothed at the breast. Being in a swing alone with a pacifier is a much different experience than being on mom’s chest, at the breast, able to explore your world from her arms and check back in for comfort by gazing at your favorite person in the whole world. How much do those experiences matter? At Square One OT, we believe they matter a lot.