Hi Lisa - congratulations on your new baby!  Even with all of our knowledge and experience in helping other Moms, I think all Moms are destined to worry.  Being a new Mom can also be very isolating - even when surrounded by helpful, excited relatives and friends who want nothing more than to be there for you and to help out in some way.

I too would vote for more frequent feeds, keeping the baby stimulated at the breast (before she gets sleepy), watch for swallows and keeping her close to you.  I believe that positioning at the breast can make an enormous difference in the effectiveness of a feed - keep her body aligned (ear, shoulder, and hip in a straight line) and the chin deep in the breast when she is latched.  If your breast is quite full before a feed, soften it a bit first so she doesn't have a big struggle in compressing during latch.

I'm not a big fan of using pre- and post-weights regularly to assess milk transfer for several reasons, including that this can be quite stressful and not always reflective of the big picture.  I prefer to rely on diapers and weight gain.  However others may have different opinions and experiences in this area.

Ask a trusted person in your life to keep the visitors to a minimum and coordinate anything you need done around the house.  Your job is to feed the baby and take care of yourself - nothing more.  One of my favorite suggestions for new Moms is to create a list of all the tasks you'd like to have done and leave it somewhere accessible.  When people volunteer to help - direct them to the list and they can pick a job that they want to do.

If you do need to pump, perhaps to have a supplement of expressed breast milk, I would not be concerned about it decreasing the amount available to the baby.  Pumping directly after a feeding will empty the breast further and the emptier the breast the faster the milk production.  Plus that would ask the body to make more (good old supply and demand) and hopefully she'd be taking that in at subsequent feeds.

Contacting a local IBCLC and La Leche League can be very helpful as well.

Ellen

Ellen J. Rubin, MA, IBCLC, LLLL

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