Working and breastfeeding challenges

Infant Feeding Specialist Cynthia Epps, IBCLC, shares her top tips for working moms on how to continue nursing your baby while still working
Breastfeeding Tips for Working Moms
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Working and breastfeeding challenges

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The main problem that a working, nursing mother faces is when she is told to follow the formula feeding paradigm for her breast milk replacement bottles in her absence. Formula is factored at 20 calories an ounce, breast milk varies in caloric load between 20 calories an ounce to 40 calories an ounce. So if a mother is told to give her baby as much of one or one and a half extra ounces because the doctors think that it's only 20 calories an ounce, and the baby overfeeds in her absence, we get working mothers whose babies begin to reject the breast upon home coming feed. They will shorten the time on the breast for these subsequent four to five feeds that the mother needs to do during the night and day, when she's home with the baby. They will also shorten the time on the breast. This results in the mother seeing less pumped milk when she's away from the baby at her job. They begin to feel like they can't keep up with the baby. Formula supplementation very quickly follows, and the breastfeeding can be lost. In order to remedy this, it's quite simple. You can contact a breastfeeding professional, like myself. We have the devices to factor how much caloric load of your breast milk, how many calories an ounce your particular breast milk is. If that's not possible, if that's not feasible in your area, then you can feed one-half to one ounce less per bottle when you use your replacement feeds during the day in your absence. What happens then is the baby is very eager to see you and makes up the caloric differential in the subsequent four to five breastfeeds, when you are together, every 24 hour period.

Infant Feeding Specialist Cynthia Epps, IBCLC, shares her top tips for working moms on how to continue nursing your baby while still working

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Cynthia Epps, MS, IBCLC

Infant Feeding Specialist

Cynthia Epps, MS, IBCLC holds a master’s degree in nutritional biochemistry and is a board certified lactation consultant in private practice in Los Angeles, California. She specializes in home and internet consults for new mother/infant couples from birth through two years of age. She covers early breastfeeding questions such as learning to trust the breast, establishing a good milk supply, sore nipples, colic and reflux; as well as “back to work” protocols for the working mother and “transitioning to solids” at six months per the American Academy of Pediatrics and World Health Organization guidelines, plus food wars and gentle weaning guidelines for the older infant. In addition, she has written for LA Family Magazine and Mothering Magazine, and leads infant feeding workshops throughout the community. With the wisdom of motherhood still largely negated or ignored, she specializes in combining ancient matriarchal traditions with modern science to help the new mother transition into the time-honored role of nurturing her baby with body and breast. She continues to pursue the goal of redefining the human infant feeding norm as breastfeeding or breastmilk for all children.

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