What are the reasons for insufficient breast milk? What should I do if I don’t have enough breast milk?

What are the reasons for insufficient breast milk? There are many reasons for insufficient breast milk, which are related to the mother's nutritional status, medication, baby sucking, psychological emotions, etc. What are the reasons for insufficient breast milk? What should I do if I don't have enough breast milk? The editor will answer them one by one for you.

What to do if breast milk is insufficient

1. Strengthen the baby's sucking:

Experiments have shown that after the baby feeds, the prolactin in the mother's blood will double. This is because the baby sucking the nipple can promote the mother's pituitary gland to secrete prolactin, thereby increasing the secretion of milk.

2. Avoid taking medication:

During the lactation period, you must not take any medicine randomly. Some medicines and foods will affect the secretion of breast milk, such as anti-thyroid drugs, hawthorn, etc. If your wife is sick, it is best to take medicine under the doctor's advice.

3. Nutritional supplement:

All the nutrients in breast milk come from the mother's body. If the mother is in a state of malnutrition for a long time, it will naturally affect the normal milk secretion.

4. Keep the nurse in a good mood:

After giving birth, mothers will experience greater mood swings due to physiological and environmental factors, and often become depressed, which will restrict breast milk secretion. Medical experiments have shown that when a mother is depressed, her milk secretion will decrease sharply.

5. Diet therapy:

On the basis of taking the above measures, combined with lactation-promoting foods, the effect will be more obvious. Foods such as pig's trotters and peanuts have a good promoting effect on the secretion of milk. A balanced diet is an important rule for breastfeeding mothers.

6. Breastfeeding mothers should also pay attention to water supplementation:

Since mothers often feel thirsty, they can replenish water while breastfeeding, or drink more soups and drinks such as fresh fish soup, chicken soup, fresh milk and boiled water. It is enough to replenish water moderately, so that the supply of milk will be sufficient and nutritious.

7. Delayed weight loss:

It is difficult for mothers who are eager to lose weight in order to regain their figure to ensure the supply of milk. It is recommended that breastfeeding mothers should control their diet and lose weight after the breastfeeding period is over. In fact, breastfeeding consumes a lot of calories. As long as mothers do not eat too much and do some postpartum exercise, they can avoid fat accumulation.

What are the reasons for insufficient breast milk?

Reason 1: Failure to start breastfeeding in time after delivery

Although some people say that the first mouthful of milk a baby takes is not the most important, the sooner the baby is breastfed after birth, the better it is for the baby and the mother's health. It is generally recommended to start breastfeeding within one hour after birth, because the baby's sucking reflex is the strongest within the first hour after birth. At the same time, the baby's sucking can also promote the mother's uterine contraction, which helps prevent postpartum hemorrhage and other conditions.

If you still can’t produce milk within three days after giving birth, it may affect breastfeeding in the future. If you can’t produce milk due to blocked breast ducts, you can consider consulting a Chinese medicine practitioner and taking some medicines that can promote milk secretion, such as Tongcao and Vaccaria, according to the specific situation.

Reason 2: Lack of confidence and premature help with milk powder

The mother's confidence in her ability to breastfeed is the basic guarantee for successful breastfeeding. Regardless of the shape and size of a woman's breasts, she can produce enough milk to provide rich nutrition for the baby.

Some pregnant mothers do not have full breasts after giving birth. When they squeeze their breasts by hand, the flow is not large and it is not easy to squeeze out, so they decide to let their babies eat milk powder. In fact, at this time, you should let your baby suck more. The more times you suck, the more it can stimulate the breasts to secrete more milk.

In addition, since women are prone to mental stress and mood swings after childbirth, if they cannot adjust themselves or get comfort from their family, milk secretion will inevitably be greatly reduced.

Reason three: Reduce breastfeeding due to fear of pain

Many pregnant mothers have no experience in breastfeeding. When they let their babies suck breast milk, the babies try hard, and the pregnant mothers cannot accept the pain and begin to resist or even refuse to breastfeed. In fact, milk secretion is proportional to the frequency of breastfeeding. If you reduce the number of breastfeeding, milk secretion will inevitably decrease. If you want to increase the amount of milk, feed your baby more. Frequent sucking is the most effective way to stimulate milk secretion. Note that every time you feed your baby, you should suck on both breasts to ensure that they can get enough stimulation.

If the mother's nipples are injured, broken, cracked or bleeding and become inflamed, it will also affect milk secretion, so it is important to pay attention to adopting the correct breastfeeding method and properly care for the nipples.

Reason 4: Premature lactation leads to blockage

Modern scientific analysis has proven that drinking too much hen soup too soon after childbirth is one of the important reasons for the mother to have less milk, no milk or milk relapse. If you drink too much hen soup too soon after childbirth, it will enhance the effect of estrogen in the blood, weaken the effect of prolactin, or even eliminate it, thus leading to insufficient milk secretion or no milk. In addition, the high fat in traditional pig's trotter and crucian carp soup will not only block the mammary ducts, which is not conducive to breast milk secretion, but also make the mother fat. Mothers must be careful not to drink milk-inducing soup in the early stage of milk production. It is best to wait until the milk secretion is normal and sufficient before drinking milk-inducing soup.

Reason 5: Poor rest

After the baby is born, the new mother has to take care of the baby day and night, and the high mental stress often leads to physical exhaustion, lack of sleep, and excessive stress, which leads to a decrease in milk supply. Breastfeeding mothers should take good time to rest. They can ask their husbands or family members to help take care of the baby during the day, and take a nap. They should also learn how to breastfeed at night without affecting their sleep.

Mixed feeding when breast milk is insufficient

Expectant mothers who really cannot solve the problem of insufficient breast milk should not be anxious. The more anxious they are, the more it affects milk secretion. They can mix feeding according to the baby's situation to meet the baby's daily growth needs.

1. For young babies, you can first feed them breast milk for about 10 minutes, and then supplement them with a certain amount of formula milk. This way, they can finish eating the high-nutrition breast milk first and make up for the lack of high-quality protein.

2. If the baby refuses to eat dairy products after drinking breast milk, and there is still enough breast milk for one feeding after a gap between feedings, you can adopt the interval feeding method of feeding the baby with pure breast milk for one meal and formula milk or other milk substitutes for the next meal.

3. Depending on the mother's work situation or other reasons, you can also arrange to breastfeed the baby in the morning and evening, and feed 1-2 additional servings of milk or other milk substitutes.

4. If breast milk is not too lacking, you can adopt the interval feeding method of feeding pure breast milk once, and adding a certain amount of milk substitute after the next breastfeeding, or feeding breast milk more times, and only feeding other milk or products 1-2 times.

5. If some babies refuse to eat other milk or milk substitutes after drinking breast milk, and breast milk is not enough for a full meal, they have no choice but to eat formula milk first and then breast milk.