Rightly called as liquid gold, breastmilk is the best first food that a mother can offer her newborn baby. Breastfeeding is safe, clean and affordable and is easily available for the baby in the right temperature and composition that the baby requires. Besides providing babies with nutrition, it also contains multiple immunoglobulins and enzymes which helps the young one to fight infections. Not just the baby, but even mothers benefit as there is evidence of better post partum weight loss, prolonged amennorhea, prevention of ovarian and breast cancer and also less chances of post partum depression and anxiety. World Health Organization therefore recommends exclusive breast feeding for 6 months and continued breastfeeding along with complementary feeding for at least 2 years.
“Breastfeeding is easy and natural” a sentence repeated again and again by the society around you makes you feel like a failure when it is not so for you. However, If you go by the current statistics less than 50% mothers succeed in exclusively breastfeeding their babies till 6 months in our country, which is mostly due to lack of proper breastfeeding support and lack of knowledge amongst new mothers.
Problems like improper latch/difficulty in initial latching, nipple soreness/cracks/ mastitis, insufficient milk supply are few of the reasons why mothers quit breastfeeding. Also, multitudes of myths surrounding formula feeding adds further to the guilt of mothers who are unable to breastfeed.
We at Dr. Aggarwals would like to extend our support and advice and equip new mothers with appropriate knowledge /practical skills to have a wonderful breastfeeding experience that she deserves and when the time comes, also provide mothers with appropriate knowledge and tools for successful weaning/introduction of solids.
