MELISSA NAGIN: Hi, I'm Lactation Consultant Melissa Nagin. I sat down to teach new mother
Iowa the classic position for breastfeeding with her two week old baby Jake. Watch to
learn what you should expect to feel and hear.
MELISSA NAGIN Now, why don't we get you set up and I'll take him while we get you readyÉ
here, Sweetie Pie tuck,tuck his tush right into the crook of your arm so if you brought
your arm around this way with your forearm going right up the length of his back so you
have all support with this entire body with just your forearm and you would be supporting
his head behind his ears with your thumb and your forefinger. To come around and to make
the latch very, very easy, you would come around with this hand and make a "U." So,
you're gonna keep this arm here. this arm is gonna come around and support your breast
in aÊ"U." So, come around even more so underneath perfect. So, you're making aÊsandwich for
him. When you eat a sandwich, you make it as compact as possible to be able to latch
on to it and because he's lying [sic] on his side, we would come around like this so that
it makes the latch much easier for a lotta babies. This is a baby that's gonna latch
on to anything; he's easy. But, in a lotta cases when a lot of moms have issues with
the actual latch, coming around in that "U" in a cross-cradle position will really, really
help because it makes that sandwich. And you'll never be able to go to a restaurant again
and see anybody eating a sandwich 'cause you're always gonna think of a latch on now. With
this arm, when you're in this position, with this arm, your entire arm, just your forearm
alone, is supporting his entire body so when we openÉ when he opens that mouth, we can
just give a little bit of a push from your wrist or his shoulders; we're never pushing
the head back and forth. We don't wanna move the head like this because then it's very,
very difficult to swallow but here, he's aligned perfectly and most importantly, we see that
he has a deep latch because we can see that he has from the nose all the way down the
chin, he's pressed right up against you, there's almost like a perfect line so this is why
he's absolutely textbook perfect. we can see, you know, if I pull back a little bit, which
I don't want you to do, we see a forty-five degree angle of his mouth; it's a wide-open
mouth like duckbill lips: that's how we know that he's on there well. His pattern, right
now, you can see he's sucking; he's very, very hungry; he hasn't eaten in aÊwhile but
his sucking he's sucking, he's swallowing and then he's pausing. He's sucking, he's
sucking and we're hearing the gulping right now because he is uh, very he's very hungry
so and your breast is very, very full right now because it's been a while without with
a lot of foremilk and once it starts to sort of uhm, fall into the hindmilk and he extracts
a lot of the foremilk, that's when the suck will change, from a very well drawn in deep
suck to more of a flutterÉ that's fine; we leave them on one breast for an entire feed;
we let them go. You know, it's a baby-led feed; you can see right now: he's starting
to slow down aÊbit; that's perfect. And I know that a lot of moms start to say, "Oh!
He's done now," and they take them off but that's not the case and we really, really
want them to get to thatÉ that fatty rich milk with the hindmilk.
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