FAQ - Breastfeeding edition
As we enter the last day of World Breastfeeding Week, this blog post aims to answer your most frequently asked questions related to breastfeeding for women and babies.
Here’s a little backstory on me (Meg - the Endorsed Midwife behind Mum, Babe & Meg).
When I graduated as a Midwife, providing breastfeeding support to women was a really challenging aspect of my practice, especially when women encountered breastfeeding challenges. I remember women asking all kinds of questions and I didn’t quite feel equipped to answer them thoroughly or to provide care that would improve their breastfeeding experience. I knew I needed to be better at this and more importantly I believed women deserved better from ME as a practitioner. Since then, I’ve been seeking opportunities to develop my feeding and lactation skills and learnt many new practices and methods along the way, and also unlearnt many practices that are common in our 2025 culture of feeding our babies, not not aligned with women and babies biologically.
Now, as an Endorsed Midwife and mentee student to an incredible Lactation Consultant, I find breastfeeding consults one of my favourite areas of practice.
I add this little backstory in to express to you, the reader, that YES breastfeeding is a natural ability of us as mammals, but that doesn’t mean it comes naturally and sometimes it can be really really hard. But if I can learn and develop, then you can too.
FAQ - Breastfeeding
Should breastfeeding be painful?
Short answer is - no. Whilst there was some circulating advice that still pops it’s head up from time to time that “breastfeeding is always a bit painful” - unfortuately that advice is misguided and inaccurate.
Breastfeeding pain could present as nipple pain, bleeding or cracked nipples, breast pain (during or inbetween feeds) and all these symptoms are signs that an aspect of your feeding experience could be improved or adjusted to address the pain and resolve it. More importnantly, breast pain could be a sign that the baby is not effectively feeding and moving milk from the breast into it’s body and thus addressing pain in-turn is also supporting your baby to feed more effectively.
How do I know my baby is getting enough when they are breastfeeding?
There’s a few factors I’ll list below that help us assess if your baby is “getting enough” when breastfeeding. These factors should all be considered in partner with eachother, NOT in isolation.
Baby behaviour - How does your baby act before, during and after a breastfeed? Does their behvaiour change as it moves through these stages? Think about yourself as an adult.
You’re hungry - you will probably start looking for food, moving around to find something to eat, expressing to others around you “hey I’m hungry”. Then you find some food - and you bring it to your mouth and process the food with your tongue and teeth and jaw and swallow the food. You then feel content - you’re no longer hungry and you go about your day (or even have a snooze if you like!) and your needs for hunger have been met. In a really simple way babies are exactly the same. So when assessing a baby’s behaviour we can assess - how are they telling us they are hungry, how are they processing the food (breastmilk or other) and is there an effect and their hunger needs are met?
Output - Assessing a baby’s wees and poos (colour, frequency and volume) is a way of assessing breastfeeding effectiveness. What goes in, simply must come out!
Growth - growth for baby’s is a sign that breastfeeding is effective - BUT it should not be considered in isolation! Whilst weight gain can be a reassuring sign that breastmilk is going into your baby - if breastfeeding is hard for whatever reason I applaud weight gain but we cannot ignore women’s and babies breastfeeding experiences.
My breastmilk changes colour - WHY?
Breastmilk is alive and full of hundreds of enzymes, antibodies, hormones, luekocytes, macro and micro nutrients, water, vitamins and minerals.
Breastmilk can appear to change colour when your body makes adjustment to breastmilk composition to meet your babies needs (eg. season changes, your baby is sick). It can also change colour from diet influence mainly from green or orange foods (spinach, carrots, pumpkin).
Black, red or brown breastmilk may be blood-stained it’s recommended this is reviewed by a health practitioner.
When will my breastfeeding baby sleep through the night?
Breastfeeding serves for 4 functions
Regulation
Connection
Development
Nutrition
Feeds are all stages (day and night) serve these purposes and thus it’s really tricky to say an exact point where babies will sleep through the night. As baby’s grow and breastfeeding meets these 4 key needs, you would expect the nights to become more settled and restful without as frequent waking however each baby is different and has unique needs.
For newborns specifically, frequent overnight feeds are important to meet nutritional needs and also to regulate and stimulate women’s milk production. Women and baby’s are a team and depend on eachother, and in this dependence breastfeeding women need regular stimulation from baby’s as much as baby’s need women.
Sleep is important for everyone and often when baby’s breastfeeding ability grows, their sleep improves in a really positive way.
Thanks for reading another blog post! If you or someone you know is seeking feeding and lactation support, postnatal care packages (continuous care from birth until 8 weeks old) or single consults are now available via the booking system.
All my midwifery love,
Mum, Babe & Meg