Body Positioning While Feeding at the Breast/Chest

Lots of Lactation Consultants will teach you about positioning the BABY while feeding at the breast/chest but have you been focusing on your own body?

Your body position has an effect on two things: gravity and tension

When you lean into the baby, you’re causing your body to tense up. This increases the amount of muscular stress and can cause pain. Always focus on bringing the baby to the breast/chest, NOT the breast/chest to the baby. You don’t want to end up in a pretzel for 30 minutes while you feed!

Now onto gravity: we want to use gravity in our favor! Not necessarily in the way you think though.

Shifting your body backwards into a semi-reclined position while feeding can reduce the amount of gravitational pull downwards that your baby is using to cause a “let down” or milk ejection reflex. By leaning back we can ease this milk ejection to help with choking or sputtering when a baby is having difficulty managing the flow of milk.

You and your baby are a Dyad. Both of you matter! If you’re struggling with positioning, reach out to a Lactation Consultant for assistance.