Help! My baby is getting teeth. Can I still breastfeed?

My five-month old is teething — her gums are sore, she’s drooling, and she is chewing on everything. Nursing is very important to both of us, and neither one of us is ready to stop. But I’m worried about continuing to breastfeeding her when she has teeth! Won’t that hurt?

Congratulations on developing such a strong nursing relationship with your daughter. I can understand your distress at the idea of weaning your daughter, but there’s no need to wean because her teeth are coming through.

Human babies are designed to breastfeed long with teeth. In the normal course of breastfeeding, the way your grandmothers, and great-grandmothers, and great-great-grandmothers breastfed, babies were breastfed for a long after they got teeth [historically, most babies weaned around age 2 - 4 years -- read more here.] In Spanish, the word for baby teeth, “dientes de leche,” translates as “milk teeth” because those were the teeth babies during their nursing years.

Anything that people everywhere have been doing for that long, our bodies were designed to do. And that’s the case with nursing a baby with teeth: our bodies are designed to do it.

So how does it work? When your baby is nursing, your baby opens her mouth wide. It is impossible for a baby to bite you while her mouth is open wide, nursing. Mothers do occasionally get nipped by a nursing baby . This usually happens after the baby has finished nursing and remains at the breast. Usually, the baby is passing through a quick phase of experimenting, or is teething and needs something else do bite down on. La Leche League International’s great FAQ on nursing a baby with teeth has lots of practical advice about how to get through this. One hint: before baby can clamp down to bite, she has to move her tongue out of the way. You can watch for her tongue to move, and take that as a sign to gently latch your baby off

Have you breastfed a teething baby?  Did you discover any tricks that helped you? Please share your experiences!

 

FDA warns consumers about Mommy’s Bliss Nipple Cream

The FDA has issued a warning warning women not to use Mommy’s Bliss Nipple Cream. It contains ingredients which may be harmful to babies. You can read about more about it here. If you are looking for a new brand of nipple cream, you might want to try Lansinoh Brand Lanolin for Breastfeeding Mothers (assuming you have no sensitivities to lanolin). You can also try using your own breastmilk. It has antibacterial properties which may accelerate healing of sore or cracked nipples. After you finish feeding your baby, express a few drops of milk and rub it gently into the skin.

 

Watch your Language: The impact of how we talk about breastfeeding

To all of you breastfeeding fans who are attuned to the subtleties of language: you are going to love this classic article by Diane Weissinger, MS, IBCLC, suggesting we stop talking about the “Benefits of Breastfeeding” and start talking about “The risks of NOT breastfeeding instead.” It blew my mind when I read it for the first time.

And if you loved that article and want to read MORE about how language and images we use affect the public perception of breastfeeding, hie thee to you local library and check out Jack Newman and Theresa Pitman’s Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers. You’ll find a chapter dedicated to dissecting the messages we get about breastfeeding and formula feeding from media and from formula company brochures. [In one trick formula feeding mothers pictured on brochures wear wedding rings; breastfeeding mothers do not.]

 

Breastmilk contains stem cells!

Researchers in Australia have found that breastmilk contains stem cells! Read about it here. [Thank you to Carrie for the article]

We have known years that breastmilk provides babies a lot more than just nutrition. Breastmilk contains antibodies from the mother which is why breastfed babies are so much less likely to be hospitalized for an infection than babies fed artificial baby milk. According to pioneering nursing professor Paula Meier, the milk of the mothers of the preemies she works with “is really a medication for their babies. “

But stem cells?? We haven’t head anything about stem cells in breastmilk. We don’t know what they do there or why they’re there. I’ll be eager to learn more in the years to come about what their role it.

But whatever role stem cells play in breastmilk, they’re not there for accident. They have some function protecting babies in a way that we don’t understand.

And when we ask “Why is breastmilk so different than formula? Why can’t we capture all the wonders of breastmilk and put it in a can?” Well, it’s not so easy to replicate stemcells. Or antibodies. Or all of the other things living in breastmilk that we haven’t even heard of yet, but that are in your breastmilk right doing their jobs helping your baby grow smart, strong, and resilient.

Sara Spalding

 

Ten tips to Breastfeeding for a Year

Is it your goal to breastfeed for at least a year, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics?  Then check out this great article detailing some practical ideas on how to get breastfeeding off to a good start and keep up your momentum.

 

Welcome to the Broad Ripple La Leche League Blog!

Welcome!

We’ve created this new blog to make it easier to find Broad Ripple Group meeting times and dates, local breastfeeding support by phone, email, or the web, and other breastfeeding information.

Would you like to be famous? We’re looking for breastfeeding pictures from our group members that we can use to decorate our blog. If you have any you would like to donate, please let me know.

This blog is very new.  If you have any ideas of things you’d like to see here, please comment.

We hope you enjoy it! If you’d like to stay updated, please subscribe to our RSS feed or email notifications!

Sara Spalding

Leader

Broad Ripple Group

La Leche League of Indiana