Each mother is worried about whether the baby has enough breast milk. Problems of excess milk, as a rule, do not arise. Another question is how to determine if there is not enough breast milk, and what to do about it.
Lack of breast milk - signs
Lack of milk during breastfeeding is dangerous because the child will not receive enough nutrients and, as a consequence, will not gain weight. If the newborn does not have enough breast milk, you can understand this by the following signs:
- When monthly weighing is not noted the proper weight gain.
- When sucking a breast a child is restless, often tears off from his chest, and then the nipple grazes.
- The kid does not have enough swallowing movements with a large number of sucking. The norm is one swallowing movement for 4 suckers.
- The child does not maintain the proper intervals (2-3 hours) between feedings.
- The child begins to urinate rarely, the volume of urine decreases. In the first month of life, the baby should urinate every hour, and by the time of the year - every two hours.
If the mother suspects that the baby does not have enough breast milk, it is necessary to make control feeding and weighing. To do this, on a special scale, showing the weight to within a gram, weigh the baby before and immediately after feeding to find out how much milk he sucked. Such weighing is carried out several times a day to reveal the average and total volume of sucked-up milk. Remember that the daily norm of sucked milk should be 1/5 of the body weight of the baby.
Lack of breast milk - what to do?
To determine why there is not enough breast milk is very important. This can be wrong sucking, not enough application to the breast, insufficient milk production from the mother, sleeping at the breast. By eliminating the problem, for example, by making more frequent feeding, improving lactation, you can eliminate the lack of breast milk. This should be done under the guidance of a mammologist and pediatrician, and also try to follow the principles of feeding on demand .