When you are pregnant, you spend many hours thinking about meeting your baby, what color hair or eyes s/he may have, or whether s/he will resemble you or your partner. Hopefully you have spent time preparing for the birth, and have visualized what you want, written a birth plan with your partner and discussed it with your health care provider and/or labor support person. Preparing for birth really is elemental to preparing for breastfeeding. The two flow together, as the baby makes its way from inside the mother to the outside, yet it stays very much attached, except after birth, mother and baby are attached at the breast.
Many pregnant women know they want to breastfeed, or they think they want to try, but what they don’t realize is that breastfeeding takes preparation, education, support, guidance, patience, and sometimes a strong will! If you are planning on breastfeeding, or have entertained the thought, please consider taking the time to do a little research on the process, involve your partner, take a breastfeeding preparation class, ask your healthcare provider questions, and bring all of your knowledge and choices together and write a breastfeeding birth plan.
Your breastfeeding birth plan should have two parts: one for the hospital and one for home. In the hospital/birth center you will hopefully get professional advice from a Lactation Consultant, so that when you are discharged you feel like you have an idea on how to feed your baby. You do not want to leave if you are unsure about latch, positioning, how often to feed, etc. Arriving home with a brand new baby can be overwhelming, and you want to feel confident in breastfeeding, so ask all of your questions before you leave. Not sure what to ask? Well that is why research before hand, books, and a breastfeeding birth plan are all wonderful tools.
Breastfeeding is natural, and some of it will come instinctually, but a great deal of it is learned. We do not live in a society where we often see women breastfeeding, so we never learn by observation, thus when it is our turn to feed our precious new babies, we fumble around, get frustrated and feel guilty for not knowing what we are doing. When in reality, there is no way we could automatically know all there is to know, we must be taught. In addition, the birth story, and all of its details play a role in how breastfeeding begins. A baby who is born to a mother who received no drugs during labor and was born with relative ease, will likely search for the breast and begin nursing within minutes if placed skin to skin on the mother’s abdomen/chest immediately after delivery. Conversely, a baby whose mother had a prolonged labor, and was administered epidural anesthesia or other medications, will not be as alert as the baby whose mother received no medications. This is not to say that the baby will not breastfeed and that they will not have a beautiful breastfeeding relationship, but it is a fact that medication crosses the placenta and affects the baby. Now, I am not saying to you that if you want to breastfeed you should not have pain medication if you wish, but what I am saying is that you should do research and know that the medication can affect your baby and make him/her less alert immediately after birth. Regardless of your choice for labor, every mother who intends to breastfeed should still consider writing a plan for doing so.
So what do you include in a breastfeeding birth plan? Your choices are personal and will vary from couple to couple, but if you are looking to have the healthiest start with the fewest hurdles, then it should be pretty specific. Hospitals designated Baby Friendly USA, have a policy in place that is designed to promote breastfeeding. Should you deliver at a hospital that is “Baby Friendly” then you can feel comfortable knowing that the facility will have completed and will comply with the following ten steps. These ten steps are intended to help establish sound breastfeeding relationships for the mother/baby dyad:
| 1 - | Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff. |
| 2 - | Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy. |
| 3 - | Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding. |
| 4 - | Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within one hour of birth. |
| 5 - | Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation, even if they are separated from their infants. |
| 6 - | Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breastmilk, unless medically indicated. |
| 7 - | Practice “rooming in”– allow mothers and infants to remain together 24 hours a day. |
| 8 - | Encourage breastfeeding on demand. |
| 9 - | Give no pacifiers or artificial nipples to breastfeeding infants. |
| 10 - | Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic |
I mention these ten steps because steps 4-9 should be included in your personal breastfeeding birth plan. (I wish that every hospital was a Baby Friendly USA facility, but that is just not the case. Earning the designation requires the submission of an application, takes a few years to complete, requires hundreds of thousands of dollars of training for every person employed by the hospital (from the chief of surgery to the newest orderly), and of course an approval once those steps are complete. These are just a few reasons why more hospitals do not strive for this designation, it is costly and time consuming, although the statistics have shown that the Baby Friendly hospitals save money in treatment costs because of increased breastfeeding rates means fewer sick babies return for treatment.)
The good news is that once you know what you can do to help get your breastfeeding relationship off to the best start, you can then write your own plan for you and your baby, and if you and your partner are diligent and committed in conveying your wishes to the hospital staff, you can work to implement your plan. I should clarify that breastfeeding birth plans are not just for families who give birth in hospitals, but for all women planning on breastfeeding, regardless of the location of the birth. As you will see, there is more to the plan, than just how to get started. Your plan should also outline how you will minimize distractions in the early weeks, so that you can focus on your breastfeeding relationship once you are home and recovering.
Writing a breastfeeding birth plan is a way to visualize your success, you map out your goal, it may not go exactly as planned, but you having the idea in your mind will set the stage for making it a reality. Part of your plan should also be a “Plan B”. For example, your plan may read that you want to put baby to breast immediately after birth. Well maybe there is a complication and you are not able to, maybe you are separated from your baby for an extended period. What would be your “Plan B” ? It would hopefully be to start pumping right away. I was separated from my first son immediately after birth, and I never imagined that as a possibility when I was planning to give birth. Thankfully, I had a nurse who supported my breastfeeding wishes and brought me a pump as soon as possible, and taught me how to use it.
A breastfeeding birth plan also covers you once you leave the hospital. How are you and your partner going to handle visitors, are you going to have relatives wanting to come over? What about the phone, who will field calls? Thinking about these seemingly little things can really pay off when you are home with a three day old whom you are trying to comfortably situate so that you can get him/her latched properly to provide much needed relief to your breasts which are full because your transitional milk just “came in” over night! (And in reality it will seem just as hectic as the wording of that sentence, but you will get the hang of it in no time!)
Did you know that preparing to feed and the process of feeding your newborn takes about eight hours a day? That is no more time than it takes to prepare and feed a baby artificial baby milk (infant formula), but as the mom you will be solely responsible for feeding that baby in the early weeks, (even if you choose to introduce a bottle later), so you will need a plan in place to make sure that you getting the baby what he/she needs and what you need. And it is at this point, when you are married to the couch with your nursing pillow and your water bottle, that you realize how valuable your partner and your plan can be!
In addition, to writing a breastfeeding birth plan, I recommend finding a friend who has breastfed before to keep “on call”. As a new mom you are going to question everything, and a friend who has been in your shoes and can offer advice is priceless. Make arrangements if you can before the baby is born to have access to this friend, by phone or text or email, so that when you need reassurance, you can receive it. Having someone there to support you and your spouse can do wonders for building your confidence as new parents and a breastfeeding mom.
So, are you convinced you need a breastfeeding birth plan? I hope so! I have attached a sample of a hospital breastfeeding birth plan, and one for home. Feel free to download them and make them your own. They are intended to give you a starting place, as sometimes a blank piece of paper can be intimidating. Please leave any questions or comments that you may have below. I look forward to hearing what you have to share!
