Sometimes breastfeeding can be an isolating experience. Whether you are a new mom who is breastfeeding for the first time or you have been breastfeeding babies for a while, breastfeeding can make you feel cut off from family and friends if they aren’t supportive or simply do not understand the benefits of breastfeeding.
All too often, it is assumed that a breastfeeding mom will leave a room or a public place to feed her baby out of sight. And although advertisements may be full of cleavage, for some reason people lose their minds when they see a woman feeding her baby in public. It’s as if breastfeeding support isn’t even a thing.
Most moms choosing to breastfeed their babies do so because they have been made aware of the lifelong advantages of breastfeeding. But when it comes to the task itself, many feel they have nowhere to turn to for information and advice when things are not going as planned. For that reason, a lot of breastfeeding moms unfortunately give up breastfeeding prematurely.
The World Health Organization recommends exclusively breastfeeding babies for the first six months of their lives, with continued breastfeeding along with appropriate complementary foods up to two years of age or beyond. But many are only breastfed for a few days or weeks.
It is vital that breastfeeding moms have a supportive and informative network of people to ask for help.
And that is where Breastfeeding Support Groups can play a huge role.
A well-organized breastfeeding support group will cater for a variety of women from varied backgrounds. It will educate women thinking about breastfeeding whilst they are pregnant and it will also cater for both new moms and more experienced breastfeeding moms.
Breastfeeding support groups allow women and their babies to come together in a relaxed atmosphere, to enjoy congenial conversation. Women are encouraged to discuss breastfeeding issues and, as a result, breastfeeding moms help one another to bypass barriers placed along the path.
Facebook has a number of supportive breastfeeding groups available to join.
Breastfeeding moms need to talk about breastfeeding in order to bring their experiences into the wider community. It is only by chatting about breastfeeding in an open and honest way with one another that it will become more acceptable. If more women are given the opportunity to access breastfeeding support groups then breastfeeding statistics will surely rise.
And who knows, maybe today’s breastfed babies will become confident breastfeeding moms of tomorrow, free of the worries and fears about breastfeeding that are so prevalent in today’s society.