I was debating whether to put this under the ‘Milk Milk Milk’ section or under the ‘You and Your Body’ section, but finally decided on the latter. This has much more to do with protecting your body from the possible long term effects of breastfeeding than on milk production. Read on ladies!

Prolapsed Nipples.
Yep, that’s right. Prolapsed nipples. Over time, the nipples naturally change in shape slightly to adapt to continued breastfeeding. However, you don’t want your nipples to change in shape more than they have to. So ladies, always make a conscious effort to keep baby’s mouth on par with the nipple level when feeding and ensure a good latch. It’s so easy to forget this (especially when you’re tired, and it’s another night feeding), but doing so will prevent baby from pulling on the nipple and cause the nipple to gradually sag or droop a little over time due to the pressure from baby’s mouth and weight of baby’s body. Baby will get increasingly heavier too, so make baby adjust to you, not the other way around!

Lower Back Pain.
It’s very easy to get lower back pain from sitting prolonged periods in certain breastfeeding positions trying to breastfeed baby, and doing this multiple times a day. So it’s very important to get a good breastfeeding pillow and a comfy breastfeeding chair with pillows to support your back. And of course, elevate, elevate! Bring baby to your breast level and don’t try to bend over to meet baby’s mouth instead. If you need to, you can use another pillow on top of a breastfeeding pillow to support baby’s body and head. This will help bring baby up more to ‘breast-level’ while feeding. This will help your posture too. Also, keep stretching! A daily simple stretch routine (5-10 minutes) can really keep backaches from getting worse and soothe those strained lower back muscles at the end of the day!

Becoming a Hunchback of Notre-Dame (or Godzilla…).
When my baby turned 9 months old, I happened to look in the mirror and was horrified that I had turned into a kind of ‘Hunchback of Notre-Dame’ with my shoulders hunched over and my shoulder blades sticking out. Either that or I had become like Godzilla with the stooping small rounded shoulders. I had unknowingly let my posture go to the wayside over all these months because of my focus on taking care of baby. Of course breastfeeding made matters worse, because often in my efforts to maintain a good latch while baby breastfed, I wasn’t sitting straight with a good posture. Even my husband noticed (and he doesn’t even usually notice when I have a haircut)! So when breastfeeding, get yourself into a comfortable position first before latching baby on, and try to keep sitting tall and straight. If you find yourself hunching over or in an uncomfortable position, then detach baby and re-latch baby on, or try a different breastfeeding position. And as you go throughout your day, remember what your mother told you all along, “Stand up tall and straight, and keep your shoulders back!” Or like in the film Miss Congeniality, Sandra Bullocks was told by the beauty pageant consultant to, “Keep your chin parallel to the floor!”