We have seen the reasons that a baby can reject the breast and some tips to help you recover breastfeeding. However, as much as we want to exclusively breastfeed, the first thing should always be to feed the baby. Getting that, despite the problems, continue to receive the amount of food you need is very important and, in addition, ensuring that allows parents to be calm enough to face calm relactation solutions.
The supplementation It should be done, as a matter of priority, with your mother's milk, extracted, with a breast pump or manually. If there is a need to use artificial lactation, it should be recommended by the doctor.
The newborn
When a little newborn Do not breastfeed properly and we must complement breastfeeding, it is important to use a method that avoids nipple confusion, that is, other ways of giving breast or artificial milk that do not interfere with sucking.
The most common, for newborns, is a syringe. Although the amount of milk that fits in a syringe is very small, so is the amount of colostrum that women naturally produce. Of course, by giving it, we must do it very slowly, so that there is no risk of choking. The milk in the syringe is allowed to run through the finger in the baby's mouth.
A premature baby or one who has suffered in childbirth may have little strength to hook the chest for a few days. If we use this syringe-finger method we supplement in a controlled manner, while improving your suction instinct and our own breastfeeding skills.
The syringe-nipple method
Use the syringe-finger method It consists of putting the finger in the baby's mouth, so that we usually open the mouth to receive the food, which must be maintained to be able to trace breastfeeding. The finger, usually the heart, rests on the baby's palate and then, when this stimulus causes the baby to start sucking, we push the plunger of the syringe slowly, so that the milk flows and sliding down our finger to the mouth of the baby. So we get the newborn to continue to relate suction to food and also, we know when he is sucking to only make the milk flow when he does.
We can use a normal syringe, of 10 or 20 cubic centimeters, filling if more is needed, or even ones that sell up to 60 cubic centimeters.
It is necessary to check that the baby's lips are open, both of them out, that it does not make empty noises and only provide milk when the baby sucks.
This method is especially indicated in the premature babies or those with a teat-nipple confusion syndrome, for having used a bottle or teat cups. It is also indicated in babies with oral dysfunctions, such as the frenulum.
Of course the syringe is not put on the needle and the hygiene of both the syringe and the finger must be extreme.
To do it correctly you have to put your finger not exceeding the first third of the tongue and only let the milk flow when the child puts his tongue under our finger and begins to suck. It is necessary to have help to support the baby, since we will need to use both hands, or leave it safely supported on a cushion, the bed on a pillow or a hammock, so that it is lying down but a little inclined.
We can also use an eyedropper if the amount of milk needed is very small, or a very useful device, the Finger Feeder, which by having a longer and more flexible cannula will make it easier for us to control the amount of milk.
Other supplementation devices
Each case requires a different supplementation device, depending on the problem of the baby with breastfeeding and the circumstances of the family. Choosing the most suitable one helps both that breastfeeding can be recovered earlier and that parents feel more confident that they are doing the right thing.
It is advisable to seek advice from an advisor or a monitor of a support group, who usually have all the necessary information about the pros and cons of each possible method. The choice, in the last case, with all the data, will be of the parents, because for each woman a device may be more indicated for complex reasons, becoming, in some cases, to be the most appropriate way, discarded the others, the bottle , we will see how it should happen.
In the following topics we will see an example of a newborn's relationship and other supplementation methods that we can use if The baby rejects the chest.
