Speaker: How should I hold my baby when breast feeding?
Sandra Cole: Now we are going to talk about ways to hold your baby while breastfeeding. We will start with the cradle hold because how that's how most people know. You want to position your baby not in the crook of your elbow but on your forearm. If you put him in the elbow the neck is going to roll up like that and the baby wont be able to latch properly or breath or suck.
So resting on my forearm I am going to put the baby on his back close to me and then going to put this arm in near the belly and roll the baby towards me. That gives me perfect positioning the baby is in straight alignment, I want to make sure the baby's nose is align with my nipple that will put the baby's mouth at the right positioning for feeding.
This is the cradle hold, I am using my hand to support the baby, I am not pushing the head against him and I am very comfortable and the baby looks very comfortable. So again that's the cradle hold. The good thing is about that is it's very comfortable the bad thing about it is you are going to use your other hand to support your breast and that means putting you hand in here and it's going to get caught with the baby.
It's especially not so good if you got big rings on or long finger nails. Another hold I can show you is called the cross-cradle. You are going to position your baby across my body and I am using this hand to feed the baby on my left side, again position the baby with his nose next to your nipple, the good thing about this positioning is you can now maneuver your hand better to support your breast. The bad thing about it is if you can see my left shoulder is really upright I am not relaxed with that shoulder and my milk cant let down.
So if you are using this position you have to relax so that your body can let down the milk. If your muscles in here all tighten up it won't work. So relax that shoulder and that hold will work for you. Another hold you can do is called the football hold. This is good for if you have the C section and you don't want your baby leaning on your stomach. You are going to place your baby in this position lean slightly forward and breastfeed this way. The bad thing about this is specially in an arm chair a lot of the moms feel that they don't have a good support of the baby's bottoms and legs and that he might just slip out the chair.
Another hold that I would like to demonstrate is lying in bed, if you cant get out of bed for some reason or you are very bid chested lying in bed is good way to feed your baby. You will be lying on your side with your head down, don't be up like that because again the muscles in your chest are too exercised that way and you don't let that wont happen. You want to lie on your side place your baby's arm in and roll your baby, so again the nose is next to your nipple.
If you choose over to move over to the next side, what you could do is use your pillow and elevate your baby once you have done one breast upto your second breast again keep your head down. the last position I would like to show is called the Australian hold. Lie back and you put your baby on top of you, this hold isn't so great because you can't see the baby's face but it's good for babies who have cleft lips and palates or if you have a strong milk ejection reflex or let down, the gravity helps the baby from choking.
So those are the different holds you can use for breastfeeding your baby.
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