Mitigating Stress and Breastfeeding

4 min read

Breastfeeding/chest feeding has the capacity to be such a wonderful experience for so many reasons. However, for many, stress and breastfeeding can go hand in hand. Read on to discover how to mitigate these stress factors protect your mental health while breastfeeding. 

Overview of stress and breastfeeding

There are MANY ways to breastfeed your baby. You can feed directly from the breast, you can exclusively pump and offer expressed milk through a bottle.

You can combine feeding at the breast and feeding expressed milk at the bottle. You can “combo” feed or feed your baby a combination of breastmilk and formula. 

mental health while breastfeeding

I want you to think about what does breastfeeding mean to you! What does it represent to you? What expectations of SELF do you have going into breastfeeding? 

Who’s needs are you responding to? Is it internal, external, a combination of both? 

What have you heard about stress and breastfeeding?

We have so much excellent evidence based research on the benefits of breastfeeding and the point is not to deny those points. In fact, many studies show that breastfeeding is a protective measure against depression! 

However, if you’re experiencing symptoms of depression you MAY find breastfeeding more difficult, since caring for the baby will be more difficult in general. Let’s take a look at common stressors!

Feeding challenges are a major contributing factor to stress in the postpartum period, here are a list of ongoing free virtual support groups. 

Common stressors related to breastfeeding:

  • Is my baby getting enough milk?
  • Is my supply okay?
  • Feeling pressure to continue breastfeeding
  • Scheduling concerns
  • Time investment 
  • Taking away from other necessary duties 
  • Having low supply due an underlying medical condition 
  • Fear of letting others down 

stress and breastfeeding

Common misconceptions

Did you know that stress can negatively impact supply? This is why it is so important to talk about this topic! 

A common misconception that I hear in sessions with my patients all the time is that breastfeeding has to be all or nothing. Many lactating people want to breastfeed for the immunity aspect but find it extremely difficult to exclusively breastfeed for a variety of reasons.

breastfeeding

Mitigating stress and breastfeeding

In doing research for my workshop that I hosted on how to protect YOUR mental health while breastfeeding which you can watch here I came across this Kellymom article.

I love her articles because she is always sure to “back her claims” with evidence based peer reviewed articles, which is SO important.  

Did you know that even ONE TEASPOON of breastmilk a day is very valuable? It’s true! Click here to read more about evidence based practices relating to immunity and breast milk volume.

Chances are these peer reviewed articles will debunk myths that you have heard! Here’s a little snippet:

“Some of the immune factors in breastmilk have been shown to increase in concentration as the baby gets older and nurses less, so older babies still receive lots of immune factors. So as a baby starts to nurse less (weaning) and milk supply decreases, the concentration of immunities increases. This isn’t age-dependent, but depends on the amount of milk that baby is removing from the breast”. [source: Goldman AS et al. “Immunologic components in human milk during weaning.” Acta Paediatr Scand. 1983 Jan;72(1):133-4.]

Breastmilk is constantly changing and is literally tailored to your babies specific needs. Think of it like this, let’s say that you offer your baby seven ounces of breastmilk a day and I offer my baby two ounces of breastmilk a day. The immunity factors in my breastmilk at a smaller  volume are actually going to be concentrated at a much higher rate! 

However, even removing one ounce of breastmilk a day can be stressful, breastfeeding is a mutual relationship. It is important to pivot and shift to formula when lactating is no longer healthy for you-mentally. 

Checkout my recorded online workshop on how to protect your mental health while breastfeeding. Click here to watch. 

WATCH WORKSHOP NOW

For many people breastfeeding is stressful for a variety of reasons. If you are experiencing stress surrounding breastfeeding you can book a consult with Deema here in order to process the experience and receive tailored coping skills that apply to YOUR situation, because that is the one that matters. 

If you are in need of “logistical” support around breastfeeding, book a consult here .

Checkout our Instagram Guides for more free helpful resources and info on mental health, breastfeeding, pumping, etc.

Other helpful blog posts:

Experiencing stress while breastfeeding is completely normal! But that doesn’t mean that you need to grin and bear it. We’re here to support you and normalize the experience! 

**This post is educational and not meant to take the place of your provider.