If you are really ill at home, and too unwell to have your baby by your bed, you'll need someone to look after you both, and to bring the baby to you when he needs a feed.
If you have to be in hospital, you may be able to take the baby with you, but this will depend on what’s wrong with you, and on the hospital's facilities. If you can't have your baby with you in hospital, see if someone can bring him to you for feeds. This entails a lot of work and commitment, and means you'll need to be in a hospital close to your home.
Another way of continuing to breastfeed if you're in hospital is to express or pump milk and send it home for your baby. It should be stored in a fridge and collected by a friend or relative for the baby to have from a cup.
A few illnesses rule out breastfeeding and a few others do so temporarily because of the drugs needed. If you have a longstanding illness such as severe asthma or kidney disease, you may feel so tired and run down that you won’t be able to face breastfeeding. However, some mothers find that breastfeeding makes them rest and tires them less than bottle-feeding would.
Breastfeeding If You Are A Diabetic
Diabetes affects about 2 per cent of the population and can run in families. Breastfeeding for at least nine to 12 months reduces the risk of a baby, with a family history of diabetes, getting it himself one day.
In one US study of 17 breastfeeding mothers with type 1 diabetes, all breastfed successfully, and 14 breastfed for more than nine months. Several tips came out of their experiences, particularly that high motivation and support from family, friends and health professionals were important. A mother with diabetes whose baby goes into a special care unit after delivery needs to be particularly sure to breastfeed, express or pump her milk frequently, since establishing her milk supply early on will help her balance her dietary needs and her insulin dose. After about five to seven hours - whether or not she breastfeeds - she’ll have an increased risk of a low blood-sugar level, but balancing diet and insulin dosage and, when she’s up and about again, exercise, stabilises her blood sugar.
Most diabetic women need less insulin in the first four to six weeks after childbirth than before they were pregnant. Some, however, need more insulin in the first three months, probably because they eat more and exercise less. If your blood sugar falls because you’ve used too much insulin, this releases adrenaline, which decreases the blood flow in their breasts and can affect the let-down reflex. Traces of insulin and adrenaline pass into milk but are largely inactivated by digestive enzymes in the baby's stomach. Any minute amounts of insulin that enter the baby’s bloodstream simply mean he temporarily produces a little less of his own.
Infections are more common in women with diabetes, and any antibiotics taken must be safe for the baby. Women who have diabetes should particularly watch out for thrush. Any breastfed baby may sometimes want more or less milk, perhaps because they are having a growth spurt. A change in the amount of milk a diabetic mother needs to make can make her blood sugar unexpectedly low or high, in which case she must compensate by adjusting her diet, exercise and insulin.
Some women find their diabetes is more stable when they are breastfeeding than it was before. Incidentally a study in the early nineties found that if a woman had pregnancy diabetes, breastfeeding helped reduce or delay her risk of getting type 2 diabetes in the future.
Breastfeeding If You Have An Infection
Several infections can produce temporary breastfeeding problems, but in no case is it necessary to dry up your milk. If it’s advisable for your baby not to breastfeed or to have your expressed or pumped milk, keep your supply going by frequent expression or pumping, and discard the milk. This prevents engorgement. Once your baby is allowed breast milk again, you’ll then have plenty of milk. Good luck
Dr. Penny Stanway
May 2009
You can buy Dr. Stanway's book 'Breast is Best' here |
Breastfeeding Twins
