6 tips to Help Your Preterm Baby with Breastfeeding

Breast­feed­ing is a beau­ti­ful and nat­ur­al way to nour­ish your baby, provid­ing numer­ous bene­fits for their growth and devel­op­ment. For par­ents of pre­term babies, breast­feed­ing can present some unique chal­lenges due to their early arrival. How­ever, with the right approach and sup­port, you can estab­lish a suc­cess­ful breast­feed­ing jour­ney. In this art­icle, we will explore six valu­able tips to help you nav­ig­ate the pro­cess of breast­feed­ing your pre­term baby.

Get your baby skin to skin

Skin-to-skin con­tact, also known as kangaroo care, is a power­ful tech­nique that fosters a bond between you and your pre­term baby while pro­mot­ing breast­feed­ing. By pla­cing your baby on your bare chest, you provide a warm and com­fort­ing envir­on­ment that mim­ics the womb. This skin-to-skin con­tact helps reg­u­late your baby’s body tem­per­at­ure, sta­bil­izes their heart rate, and encour­ages their nat­ur­al instincts to root and latch onto your breast. You can have skin to skin con­tact even with a baby who is still need­ing med­ic­al sup­port, the nurs­ing team will help you to man­age your baby’s tubes and wires and get you both com­fort­able. It can be a lovely feel­ing hav­ing your baby close to you. An island of calm in a very chal­len­ging situation.

 

 

 

Get the right help.

Don’t hes­it­ate to reach out to health­care pro­fes­sion­als who spe­cial­ize in breast­feed­ing, such as lacta­tion con­sult­ants or nurses exper­i­enced in neonat­al care. These experts can provide invalu­able guid­ance tailored to your pre­term baby’s unique needs. They can teach you prop­er breast­feed­ing tech­niques, offer advice on pump­ing and stor­ing breast milk, and address any con­cerns or chal­lenges you may encounter along the way. The neonat­al unit may have their own spe­cial­ist breast­feed­ing team but if not a loc­al lacta­tion con­sult­ant will be happy to speak on the phone or with the neonat­al unit’s per­mis­sion even come in to the unit and assist you and your baby together.

Move the milk!

Most pre­term babies can­not feed well enough at first to keep your milk sup­ply up. Start express­ing early, ideally with­in six hours of birth. Get your mid­wives or neonat­al team to help you hand express and then start with a pump as soon as you are ready. A hos­pit­al grade elec­tric double pump stim­u­lates sup­ply how­ever you may not get much usable milk until Day 3 post birth. If your baby is not yet tak­ing milk then early pump­ing max­im­ises sup­ply. Make sure you get sup­port using the pump and keep set­tings at a level which is com­fort­able. If your baby is tak­ing milk, then hand express­ing first to provide colostrum to baby fol­lowed by pump­ing to increase stim­u­la­tion can be a bet­ter option. Express at least 8 and prefer­ably more times a day. Remem­ber most new­borns feed around 12 times in 24 hours. Fre­quency is gen­er­ally more import­ant to sup­ply than length of expres­sion. Keep a record of how much you express each day and dis­cuss with your breast­feed­ing help­ers if its not stead­ily increasing.

 

Take it slowly

Pre­term babies often have an imma­ture suck and swal­low reflex, mak­ing it chal­len­ging for them to latch onto the breast ini­tially. At first your baby may just lie close to the breast while hav­ing their tube feed, begin­ning to under­stand that the breast sat­is­fies hun­ger. This then pro­gresses onto lick­ing when you express a few drops of milk and then attempt­ing to attach to the breast. Pre term babies can struggle with this and some­times shap­ing the breast or using nipple shields can really help even if you have lar­ger nipples. How­ever dis­cuss this with your breast­feed­ing help­er before try­ing so you can make the best choice for you.

Optimize Positioning and attachment:

Prop­er pos­i­tion­ing and a cor­rect latch are essen­tial for suc­cess­ful breast­feed­ing. Ensure your baby is posi­tioned com­fort­ably with their head, neck, and body aligned in a straight line. Exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent breast­feed­ing pos­i­tions, such as the foot­ball hold  or cradle hold, to find the most com­fort­able and effect­ive one for you and your baby. Many pre­term babies do best held upright in a koala hold which can feel totally non intu­it­ive. Aim­ing the nipple towards the nose and mak­ing sure your baby feels stable and close to you encour­ages your baby to open his mouth wide and to get a deep­er latch.

Don’t give up

Breast­feed­ing a pre­term baby can be a jour­ney filled with ups and downs. Be patient with your­self and your baby as you both learn and adjust. It’s nor­mal to face set­backs or encounter chal­lenges, such as a baby who tires eas­ily or has dif­fi­culty latch­ing. Stay pos­it­ive and per­sist­ent, seek­ing sup­port when needed. Remem­ber that every feed­ing, even if sup­ple­men­ted with expressed breast milk or for­mula, offers import­ant nutri­tion and an oppor­tun­ity for bond­ing. Seek out oth­er moth­ers who have or are facing the same chal­lenges and remem­ber the breast­feed­ing man­tra ‘Nev­er give up on a bad day!’

 

Breast­feed­ing a pre­term baby requires patience, per­sever­ance, and sup­port. By fol­low­ing these six tips – hav­ing skin to skin con­tact, find­ing ther right help, keep­ing the milk mov­ing, gradu­ally intro­du­cing breast­feed­ing, optim­iz­ing pos­i­tion­ing and latch and prac­ti­cing patience and per­sist­ence- you can over­come the unique chal­lenges and estab­lish a strong breast­feed­ing rela­tion­ship with your pre­term baby.

You can get fur­ther sup­port from Bliss the char­ity for babies who are pre­ma­ture or sick.