How herbs and nutrition can increase breastmilk supply and improve your mood postpartum

Friday, January 01, 2016 by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer
Tags: breastmilk, improved mood, herbs

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(NaturalNews) After a woman gives birth at a hospital, a doctor will likely follow up with her, making sure she's healing internally. Sadly, most doctors only offer pain-relief drugs at this point, giving no practical advice for some common challenges that women are bound to face after giving birth. When a new mother plans to build her newborn's immune system with her own colostrum and breast milk, she needs the best support. Struggles that may come up include dealing with post partum mood changes, low milk supply, or troubles with her baby latching correctly.

Breastfeeding is the ultimate way to protect a newborn from viruses. In this study, breast milk protected newborns from live rotavirus strains that were injected via vaccine. Breast milk gave the infants immunity to three rotavirus vaccine strains, RV1, RV5 G1, and 116E. Breast milk exerts specific IgA and neutralizing activity against all three virus strains, proving it's superiority in immune system development.

Helping the mother persevere with breast feeding

To empower the newborn's immune system and establish a strong bond between mother and baby, it's best to encourage and support breastfeeding. A willing mother, accompanied by a supportive, father, can overcome early breastfeeding challenges, even if a pediatrician tries to intervene and push formula feeding against the parents' will. The father figure is there to protect the family from doubts and misleading orders coming from systematic pediatricians. He is also there to encourage the mother without being pushy. His non-judgmental presence helps the mother press on with breastfeeding even when her emotions are exhausted. A lactation consultant can also provide great technique and emotional support as well, especially in the latching-on stages. In the end, the mother and newborn's instincts will kick in.

Supporting the mother's microbiome to help with post partem mood changes

Sometimes a mother may feel tired, emotionally inhibited, inadequate, idle, or unable to feed her newborn correctly. These emotions, which are normal, can hurt her milk supply and milk let-down. In these times, emotional support is important. To stay mentally and emotionally strong, a new mother may also need to supplement with probiotics. By supporting the mother's microbiome with healthy bacteria colonies, including apple cider vinegar with the mother, fermented foods, or a quality probiotic supplement, everything can change for the better within her microbiome. Suddenly the mother's ability to absorb nutrients increases, also allowing the good bacteria in the gut to protect the blood from toxins that may have been traveling into the blood stream and triggering chemical imbalances in the brain.

What is a Galactagogue?

If a mother's milk supply starts to feel low due to emotional hindrances or due to a newborn's frequent feeding patterns, it's important to be proactive and increase clean water intake and nutrition levels. Supplementing with nutrient-dense chlorella or spirulina increases nutrition levels of the breast milk, while delivering cleansing chlorophyll and an influx of nutrients to the baby.

If milk supply is low, the situation may be remedied with highly nutritious galactagogue herbs. A galactagogue is a natural substance that increases a mother's breast milk production. Two herbs that enrich breast milk with quality nutrition content are nettle leaf and alfalfa. These herbs can be infused in a tea. One to two tablespoons of these herbs can be brewed in simmering water for 20 to 30 minutes to produce a tea high in vitamins K, A, iron and calcium. The tea can be made three times a day if the mother prefers. It can be combined with a bitter herb called blessed thistle, which is also good for relieving postpartum depression.

Red raspberry leaf, high in niacin and a whole spectrum of vitamins and minerals, is perfect to add to the tea. Its healing action can also help the uterus recover after birth. Two seeds that stimulate breast milk production are fennel and fenugreek. These seeds are also good for regulating hormones and ensuring adequate breast milk supply.

New parents should question hospital pediatricians who push formula, unnecessary tests

The responsibilities of carrying a baby, giving birth to that baby, and breastfeeding all fall on the mother. Doctors are not going to truly understand the challenges new mothers face. They have limited to no expertise in breastfeeding, nutrition, and herbal medicine. Some pediatricians may even steer new mothers off course because they do not understand the importance of breastfeeding.

As a new father, I had to intelligently disagree with a hospital-appointed pediatrician when he suggested our newborn daughter come off breastfeeding and either take formula or a hospital feeding tube. My wife and I knew that genetically modified corn syrup formula is nothing like the immune system powerhouse of breast milk. We didn't want to disrupt the breastfeeding and mother-infant bonding process.

The systematic pediatrician also suggested that a nurse come to our home and draw our baby's blood multiple times to make sure she didn't develop jaundice. We stopped the hospital from doing this unnecessary testing and terminated the pediatrician's orders. We persevered with breast feeding even in the face of a fear-mongering pediatrician who was only making problems up.

With the right amount of family, emotional support, and with experience using herbs and nutrition, a new breast feeding mother can overcome the challenges of confusing, after-birth moods, latching problems, and low breast milk supply. A strong family can also overcome pediatricians who only complicate breastfeeding, pushing formula and unnecessary vaccines and blood tests.

Our newborn is now a one-year-old, with superior health thanks to a year of breastfeeding, NO vaccines, and no visits to see pediatricians that make problems up.

Sources:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3704726/

http://www.homeremediesweb.com/fenugreek_health_benefits.php