Natural nutrition of the baby is necessary, since it is this that guarantees the receipt of a large amount of nutritional components for the further growth and development of the child. Young mothers should know if milk can turn sour in their breasts and take into account the rules for organizing nutrition for the baby. Well-established breastfeeding has a positive effect on the health of the baby.
Reasons for poor composition
Can breast milk go bad? Milk in the breast does not spoil, regardless of the characteristics of HS. Lactation always depends on the physiological processes of the mother's body.
The main task is to comply with the rules of a healthy diet, give up bad habits, limit salt intake, since such factors lead to undesirable changes in lactation. The baby subsequently begins to notice an unpleasant taste of food and abandons the mother's breast.
Lactation is impaired due to chemical medications, alcohol, smoking, so it is advisable to give up bad habits and consult a doctor in addition to treating viral diseases.
Sour breast milk can be nutritious, as the properties do not depend on taste, color, density. However, frequent feeding at the request of the child helps to establish lactation and increase the fat content of baby food. At the same time, breast milk cannot be sour if there are no abnormalities in the mother's body.
Storage rules
Expressed milk is stored in compliance with the rules and for a certain period of time. Otherwise, the baby's food can turn sour and become potentially harmful.
Pediatricians note that milk from a nursing mother is considered the most nutritious. The frozen product loses its useful components. The freezer allows you to increase the shelf life up to 2 - 3 weeks, and in some cases - up to 3 months. This is exceptional because nutritional components are lost and breastfeeding does not provide the desired benefits for the baby.
Breast milk can turn sour if stored improperly. After that, active reproduction of bacteria will begin, therefore, such food should not be given to infants.
How to tell if your breast milk has gone bad:
- the structure is distinguished by the appearance and presence of flakes;
- color, taste, smell become different.
Spoiled breast milk should not be given to babies to prevent the risks of poisoning. Infants are very vulnerable to various bacteria, so the risk of poisoning is high and care must be taken to prevent unwanted factors.
Lactation facts
Every nursing woman should take care of establishing lactation for the correct course of all physiological processes. The baby cannot be deceived with water and a pacifier, transferred to a combined diet. At the physiological level, the presence of an inhibitor protein is provided, which inhibits lactation processes if the mammary glands are not emptied.
Does milk spoil if not fed for a long time? Milk in women's mammary glands does not spoil, regardless of the length of the breaks. Physiological processes maintain constant lactation at the required level, so "accumulation" becomes impossible.
To activate lactation, it is recommended to put the baby to the breast more often. Stable breastfeeding after childbirth is maintained at a physiological level, therefore it is advisable to regularly offer the breast to the baby and take care of close contact with him.
Breast milk turns sour only after expression and improper storage. If the physiological causes of sour milk are considered, one should not worry about the quality of the infant's nutrition, as he receives fresh food.
Adequate lactation ensures successful feeding of the newborn. The child receives all the necessary nutritional components that allow him to gain strong immunity and actively develop in accordance with age.
Each culture has its own explanation of what breast milk is made from. In many traditional societies, it has always been believed that the milk of a nursing mother is transformed menstrual blood, since a nursing mother does not (at least the first few months after giving birth) ...
And this idea is not far from the truth - breast milk is made from blood and lymph, which receive transformed molecules of substances that a woman uses for food.
When we eat, our digestive system uses enzymes to break down foods into simpler chemical forms. Our liver is the first to accept these chemical elements: potentially harmful ones are further broken down and excreted from the body, others pass through the liver unchanged and enter the general bloodstream, and from there into the mammary gland.
But before they enter the cells that secrete breast milk, they must overcome the last defense - the so-called capillary-alveolar barrier. As a result, the child receives the most balanced and unique one, in which you will not find any traces of carrots or leftovers of cabbage that you ate for lunch.
Regardless of what a nursing mother eats and how often she drinks, her mammary glands produce approximately the same volume of milk - about 700-1000 ml per day for one child. In the case of feeding two children, the volume of milk production can be 2 times more.
If the baby breastfeeds frequently, on demand, then the amount of milk produced remains practically unchanged until 6 months, i.e. before the introduction of complementary foods. The child grows, but does not ask for food anymore - this is another unique feature of breastfeeding. Only the fat content and taste of milk changes... Milk becomes fatter towards the end of feeding (and not from fatty foods, as many think), but the taste of milk depends on what the nursing mother eats. Thus, if her diet is varied, the baby recognizes these tastes and gets used to them long before.
Substances that pass from the liver into the general bloodstream are likely to pass into breast milk as well.
- This is how vitamin C from orange juice penetrates into breast milk,
- as well as the flavonoids that make the fruit so delicious. Read:
- You can also find caffeine in breast milk, or after ingestion
- as well as nicotine and drugs, which is no longer fun.
- At the same time, you cannot find fiber in breast milk, which all remains in the intestines.
In their studies, scientists have found that although many chemical elements penetrate into breast milk, but in very small quantities - no more than 1% of the total volume of a substance entering the body of a nursing mother. This amount is not enough to cause potential harm to the child in most cases, but you should still be wary of.
Output which I want to do: breast milk is part of the blood of a nursing mother, so it cannot deteriorate or turn sour even if mom has a high fever.
Breast milk is not brought in by car - it cannot "go bad" in your breast!
In any situation where you are told that breast milk can harm your baby, do not take this statement for granted. In reality, this is not the case if you do not use drugs or other powerful drugs in large quantities.
Remember, your breast milk is the very best you can offer your baby for nourishment, comfort or treatment!
The problem with a lack of breast milk is familiar to many mothers during the breastfeeding period. Someone has little breast milk from the very beginning of breastfeeding. For some, its amount decreases periodically during periods of lactation crises. And for some, it almost disappears at some point due to stress or a violation of the regime. It happens that the problem is generally far-fetched, and mom just thinks
When feeding a baby, very often mothers can hear complaints about liquid, like water, blue milk. Mothers worry about whether the baby is eating enough, whether he has enough calories and micronutrients. So why is breast milk liquid? How to make it fatter and should I do it? We will answer these questions in this article.
When a newborn is born, the wish for "sweet milk" is often heard. Yes, under normal conditions, human milk is sweet. But its taste can change. In this article, we will look at the situation when milk becomes salty - this can happen for various reasons, from the mother's diet, ending with lactostasis or mastitis. Why is human breast milk sweet before?
Staphylococcus aureus is often found in breast milk. Moms usually panic with such analyzes. What to do if you find staphylococcus aureus? Do I need to be treated myself? Will a baby get infected if he is breastfeeding? Not having the correct information, mom can make mistakes. For example, stop GW, when it is completely unnecessary. Or, conversely, do not pay attention to serious symptoms
As soon as the baby is born, he shows with all his appearance that he wants to eat, opening his mouth and trying to find the nipple. Already at this moment, the nursing mother is thinking about how much milk she has? And what does it contain? Are all the necessary trace elements for a baby? Mom wants to know if she can affect the composition of breast milk.
How is milk produced in a woman's breast? How long does it take after the previous feeding of the baby for milk to reappear in the woman's body? What does its quantity depend on? Why does a baby so often ask for breast at the beginning of life? In this article you will find answers to all of these
Many doctors argue that from the very birth it is necessary to establish a certain mode of feeding the baby, explaining their opinion by the fact that breast milk is digested no earlier than after 3 hours. To dispel this myth, an experiment was carried out in which it was established how much adapted milk formula is digested and how quickly breast milk is absorbed. The study involved 20
Breast milk is formed in the alveoli of the mammary glands from the woman's blood and lymph. Mom eaten and drunk is broken down into molecules in the digestive tract and absorbed into the blood. From the capillaries of the breast tissue, molecules pass through the cells lining the alveoli into the milk. Since food is not digested instantly, and molecules are not immediately removed from the blood, this process takes some
Some mothers end breastfeeding, citing the fact that breast milk is not suitable for the baby for some reason. Does it really happen that the baby does not like the taste of mother's milk, he suffers from colic and diarrhea due to breastfeeding? Why do newborns refuse to breastfeed and cry?
The kid does not want to drink colostrum
The fluid that begins to flow from the mother's breast some time after giving birth is called colostrum. Previously, it was believed that it is of no value, but careful research has shown that on the contrary, colostrum is not only nutritious, but also populates the baby's intestines with microflora and lays the foundation for the baby's immune system.
Many women, when trying to feed their baby colostrum and seeing his negative reaction to it, think that the baby may not like its taste, or it may not suit the baby. The reason for this behavior of the child may be banal laziness. After all, before you started the lactation process, the baby did not starve - the nurses fed him with a mixture from bottles. Drinking from a silicone teat is much easier than sucking tight colostrum from the breast - so the baby can be capricious.
The baby does not suck on transitional milk
Lactation sets in gradually. A few days after giving birth, colostrum begins to gradually change to milk. But it still bears little resemblance to a normal lactation product. During this transitional period, the discharge from the breast turns white, and the volume begins to increase sharply. Transitional milk will be about a month and a half. Due to the peculiarities of its composition, its taste is slightly bitter, and this can cause rejection in the child. But this is not a reason to quit breastfeeding - insist on your own, give the baby a breast, gradually he will get used to the taste, and over time the milk will cease to taste bitter.
Why does mom think that her milk is not suitable for the baby?
Cries and does not take the nipple. Sometimes the baby may find it uncomfortable to pick up the breast because of its own anatomical features, for example, a short frenum of the tongue, or because of the uncomfortable shape of the mother's nipple. As a rule, examination of the oral cavity by a nurse reveals the presence of a problem with a frenum in a child, which is subsequently solved by surgery. And the situation with an uncomfortable nipple shape will be decided either by time (the newborn will get used to it), or by special silicone breast pads.
Some oral diseases can be painful for the child... Ask your health visitor to examine the newborn's mouth, possibly having candidiasis that requires treatment. Seeing a characteristic white bloom on the mucous membrane, she recommends antifungal drugs that are suitable for your age. At the end of the course of treatment, the discomfort will go away and the baby can happily suckle breast milk.
Crying while eating or after eating... Colic caused by improper grip of the nipple during feeding can become the reasons for the capricious behavior of babies. The baby grabs air, which travels through the entire esophagus and accumulates in the intestines, causing pain in the newborn. Also, colic can occur due to improper nutrition of the mother. To get rid of discomfort, you need to lay the baby on his tummy before eating, and after feeding, keep it upright for a while.
Frequent regurgitation... This only says that the child gasped for air when he ate. Trying to get rid of the excess, the esophagus contracts, and part of the food comes out with the bladder. Overeating can also be a cause of regurgitation.
Allergy... Milk by itself cannot cause an allergic reaction, unless the baby has primary lactase deficiency. A trace of any negative manifestations in the baby should be looked for in the mother's diet. If a diathesis appears in an infant, it means that the nursing woman ate something forbidden the day before.
Lactase deficiency
The composition of breast milk changes throughout the entire feeding period. It is different even in one episode of food intake: there is the so-called "front" milk, sweeter and liquid, and "back" - nutritious and thick, which the baby receives "for the second."
Lactose is the main component of any milk; its highest content is found in the front milk. The enzyme lactase, which helps to uncouple this saccharide, is found in hind milk. If the newborn does not suck out the breast to the end and is content with only what is located at the beginning, then there is nothing to break down the lactose entering his body.
The baby begins to have diarrhea with a sour odor, he is tormented by colic and excessive gas formation, he is capricious during feeding, cries and bends over. His stool acquires a greenish tint and sometimes has impurities of foam, which tells us about dysbiosis in his intestines. At the same time, literally a week or two ago, the child felt normal.
This condition is called "secondary lactase deficiency", for its treatment, the pediatrician will prescribe the necessary medications for you, and you will need to try to feed the baby more with hind milk, which contains the enzymes and bacteria necessary for breakdown. To do this, it is enough to try so that the baby falls asleep with the breast in his mouth - this way he will suck the back hard milk.
Primary lactase deficiency is a congenital ailment in which the child does not produce the enzymes necessary for the breakdown of lactose, and those that come with hind milk are not enough. As a rule, Asians suffer from this genetic disorder. Primary lactose intolerance is detected immediately, the baby will have to eat special formulas that do not contain lactose and subsequently avoid dairy products.
Congenital lactose intolerance is the only case when it is true to say that breast milk is not suitable for an infant. In other cases, the mother can adjust her diet, feeding process or anatomical deficiencies and continue breastfeeding.
A seasoned breastfeeding expert dispels moms' most common concerns about the breastfeeding process
1. Does breastfeeding ruin your breasts and shape?
No! The shape of the breast changes during pregnancy, when adipose tissue begins to be replaced by glandular tissue, the task of which is to produce milk. The adipose tissue holds its shape well, and the glandular tissue is poor, so if the breast is filled with milk, it looks full and elastic, and if not, it gives the impression of fallen down. In this case, the breast remains approximately in the state in which it was at the time of the end of feeding. And the process of reverse replacement of glandular tissue with fatty tissue begins in the second half of a child's life and ends by one and a half years. By this time, there are few active glandular cells in the chest, but they also work much more productively than before. The joke of nature is that if a woman finished feeding too early, in the first few months of a child's life, then her breast does not go through the entire evolutionary process of breast tissue and “freezes” in a saggy state. So it is not breastfeeding itself that is to blame for the deterioration of the breast shape, but too short feeding!
2. Can milk disappear "from the nerves"?
When a nursing mother is stressed, nervous, the hormone adrenaline is actively released in her body. It is a natural antagonist of the hormone oxytocin, on which milk production depends. There is milk in the breast, but it flows out very badly, the child cannot suck it out in sufficient volume. Moreover, she is naughty at the chest, feeling my mother's nervousness ... What to do? Relax first. Go to a warm shower, try to put aside other things and relax. If stress is caused by tragic events, try to focus on the baby, carry it more in your hands, and intensify skin contact. When the mother continues to put the baby to the breast, even if it seems to her that there is nothing there, then after a few days the milk “returns” in the same volume.
3. The first days after childbirth you cannot do without a mixture, because there is no milk yet?
There is an opinion that colostrum alone is not enough for saturation, and if the baby is not given something else, it will starve. But nature has provided just such an option, because a few hundred years ago the mother had nothing to feed the newborn with without risking his life! Mothers usually think that there is very little colostrum, and indeed, in one serving, there is no more than a tablespoon. But the stomach of the crumbs corresponds to this: its volume in the first day of life is only about 5 ml! However, compared to mature milk, colostrum is very concentrated and more nutritious. On the first day of a child's life, the protein content in colostrum reaches 14% (this is about three times more than in mature milk)! Also, colostrum is extremely high in substances that form and stabilize normal microflora, and immune bodies that protect against possible infection. Supplementation with a mixture during this period is not only unnecessary, but also unsafe: even from one feeding with a mixture per day, an imbalance of the intestinal flora (dysbiosis) can develop. Therefore, in the first days of a child's life, the mixture should be given only for specific indications of the health of himself or his mother! And when the baby is ready to receive large amounts of food, he will simply begin to suck more often. If a mother puts it to her breast every time, then in response to this signal, her breast begins to produce milk in significantly larger volumes.
4. Is everything that mom eats passed on to the baby with milk?
It is not that simple.
Breast milk is synthesized from blood plasma, therefore, changes in the composition of the blood affect the composition of the milk. A situation in which, for example, a mother ate oranges and the child also tasted oranges in her milk is impossible. But the foreign protein in the mother's food can really penetrate her milk and affect the baby! Therefore, the baby may react to potential allergens (cow's milk protein, protein in some cereals, the red pigment of bright vegetables and fruits). At the same time, for example, foods with increased gas production (cabbage, legumes, grapes) will affect the child only if the mother herself reacts to them, because the reaction does not go to foods, but only to the extent that they cause changes in my mother's body. The same applies to drugs: not all of them end up in milk, but those that do are removed from it at different rates. Breastfeeding consultants can clarify the compatibility of the drugs prescribed for the mother with lactation.
5. Should the baby be fed according to the regimen?
In the mother's tummy, the baby received food through the umbilical cord continuously. And after birth, he does not count on long pauses, after which he receives a significant amount of nutrition. Breast milk, unlike the mixture, is absorbed quickly, it can leave the baby's stomach in half an hour after receiving, and the baby needs to eat again. And the mammary gland itself is designed for frequent emptying. If the mother tries to endure long pauses, the child suffers, and she herself is faced with milk stagnation and a decrease in lactation (milk is produced in response to breast stimulation). In the first months of life, during the day, the baby should be applied for feeding at least once every 3-3.5 hours, at night there can be one long break of 4-5 hours. If your baby sleeps longer, it’s better to wake him up and feed him. Does your baby feed more often? This is good, and with age, the feeding rhythms change without mother's participation! Only when feeding on demand can you be sure that your baby is actually getting the amount of milk he needs.
6. My milk is liquid, how can I make it better?
The composition of the milk depends on the needs of the baby. Breast milk is never bad, liquid or unsuitable! This is a physiological fluid designed by nature for feeding babies, everything else is just defective substitutes, because of the hundreds of components of breast milk, most are not synthesized artificially! Does your expressed milk look runny to you? It all depends on the time of expression: the first portion contains more water, so it may even look bluish, the baby's “front” milk quenches his thirst. As the feeding progresses, the fat content of the milk increases, and at the end of the feeding the baby receives milk, in which the fat content is 10-20 times higher than in the first portion, the baby is fed up with this milk. This "back" milk looks thicker and whiter, sometimes yellowish! There is only one way to increase the total fat content of milk: if you feed your baby more often, then in the end he will receive more fatty milk.
7. The baby sucks the breast like a pacifier, shouldn't this be allowed?
The baby does not “suck the breast like a nipple,” but the nipple is given to him instead of the breast. At the beginning of life, the baby needs a breast, first of all, to calm down, and the baby asks for it whenever something bothers him, be it hunger or discomfort in the tummy. When a mother tries to share in which cases she is ready to give the baby a breast, and in which cases a substitute is suitable, this can become the basis for many problems: from a decrease in lactation due to the fact that the baby suckles the breast less often, to rejection of the breast, when the child gets used to calm down precisely from sucking a rubber thing. Incorrect teeth growth and a delay in the formation of the correct sound of speech are a frequent result of nipple sucking, which both dentists and speech therapists warn about. So should you try to outsmart nature by choosing a similar replacement for your mother's breast?
8. When does breastfeeding replace complementary foods?
Complementary feeding should not be a substitute for breastfeeding because breastfeeding and eating are completely different processes. Complementary foods appear in a child when he is about six months old, but he should act as an addition to breastfeeding, and not a replacement. The point of complementary foods is for the baby to receive additional energy and gently, gradually prepare to receive food from the family table. The World Health Organization says that a one-year-old child should receive 50 to 75% of its energy from breast milk (or an adapted formula, if he does not breastfeed a year, this rule is common for all babies, regardless of the type of feeding). And the recommendations, which include replacing breastfeeding with a certain amount of complementary foods, are calculated on the fact that in a year the baby will be left without breast milk at all. Accordingly, if the mother is too active in introducing complementary foods instead of breastfeeding, then very often milk production decreases sharply, and sometimes the child begins to suffer from digestive problems. Do not rush to feed your baby an apple or porridge: no one can provide him with anything more useful than breast milk. Complementary feeding is given to the child in parallel with breastfeeding, and not instead of him, and the reference point is the baby's interest, and not a certain amount of food.
9. Does your baby never give up breast on their own?
Someday he will definitely refuse! Most babies stop needing their mother's breasts and switch to other modes of communication between the ages of two and four. Little scarecrow "So you will feed until school!" in life is possible only when the mother herself is completely satisfied with this situation and she does not take any steps to change something. More often it turns out exactly according to the principle formulated by the WHO: it is necessary to maintain feeding for up to two years, and after two years - at the mutual desire of the mother and the child, and if some of the parties lose this desire, then breastfeeding can end relatively quickly and easily ... Based on experience, indeed, children at some point cease to need a breast, just as they cease to need to crawl, learning to walk. Before self-excommunication, a child can apply to his mother's breast for weeks or even months only once every few days, and at some point completely ceases to remember about it. And although it may seem very distant to mothers just starting to feed, believe me, years later it will seem to you that it was a short period of maximum intimacy, when you could express tenderness and love to your baby through your milk!
10. Does breastfeeding protect my baby from all diseases?
With mother's milk, the baby constantly receives antibodies both to those diseases that the mother has had time to get sick in her entire life, and to those that she is just beginning to get sick with. The composition of milk depends on the composition of the blood, and as soon as the mother encounters pathogens and antibodies to it are activated in her body, the baby immediately begins to receive the so-called passive immunity. There is another unique ability of lactation: if the baby gets sick, then during feeding, an exchange occurs between the receptors of the breast and the baby's salivary glands, and as a result, milk begins to be produced enriched with antibodies to the baby's disease! Of course, breast milk is not a panacea for all ills, just a baby will always have an advantage in protection. Breastfed babies not only do not get sick at all, but they get sick less often and the disease is easier.
11. Once breastfeeding has ended, cannot it be restored?
Can! The process of adjusting milk production in the "sleeping" breast is called relaxation. Abroad, this is common in families adopting babies, where the mother wants to breastfeed the baby. Mothers who have transferred their babies to artificial feeding and regretted it are more often interested in relaxation in our country. After all, the physiological mechanism of lactation is simple: sucking a baby or a breast pump affects the nerve endings of the areola, from where a signal goes to the brain about the production of the hormone prolactin, and milk production depends on the amount of prolactin. Childbirth gives lactation a powerful impetus and an additional advantage in the form of a special "hormonal cocktail", however, further the process will still depend on breast stimulation.
12. After a year, there is nothing useful in breast milk anymore?
The entire period of feeding, no matter how long it is, breast milk remains the most beneficial product for the baby. Of course, after a year, the baby is already able to eat without problems what the family eats, and it is the nutritional value of breast milk that fades into the background. What the baby cannot get in any other way is living immune bodies! In the second year of feeding, the number of protective factors of breast milk only increases: from the point of view of nature, the "walker" needs protection much more! By the way, another feature is connected with this: if a child is weaned before one and a half years, then the termination of breastfeeding automatically means for him the loss of this additional protection. Therefore, many children, a few weeks after weaning, go through a series of infectious diseases until the immune system adapts.