The Intersection of Lactation and Maternal Mental Health
August 2nd, 2024
Written By: Jeni Gentry, Crescent Moon Advanced Clinical Intern
August is National Breastfeeding Awareness Month!
As a Lactation Consultant, I’ve had the honor of supporting families throughout their feeding journey and the opportunity to see how much of an impact it can have on an individual’s mental health.
For the purposes of this blog post we are going into more detail about the intersection of breastfeeding and mental health. Research indicates that breastfeeding is associated with positive maternal mental health outcomes. But what exactly does that mean?
Breastfeeding increases a mom’s self-efficacy which can protect against symptoms of postpartum depression.
Breastfeeding can protect a baby's immature immune system by providing antibodies created in mom’s milk. This protection can decrease postpartum anxiety.
Breastfeeding can reinforce the mother-baby relationship through skin to skin contact and hormone release. Oxytocin and serotonin can decrease postpartum depression and anxiety.
Breastfeeding can reduce fatigue in mom by promoting a proper sleep-wake cycle. Protecting sleep can help to protect your mental health.
While all of these things can be protective to maternal mental health, this might not be true for everyone and it’s important to remember that our culture can be very unsupportive to new parents. Breastfeeding can be challenging and without support, those challenges may outweigh the benefits.
How can breastfeeding affect your mental health?
D-MER (Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex) is a brief sensation of negative emotions that occurs during the release of milk while breastfeeding or pumping. While this experience is short (30-90 seconds) it can be overwhelming and worrying. Some people experience nausea, anxiety, sadness, or other negative emotions. There is no treatment for D-MER but symptoms can be managed with support.
The lactation journey looks differently for each family. Unfortunately, most of the images we see online are of freezers full of pumped milk and chubby milk drunk babies. If your experience does not look like the Instagram standard or like you had anticipated, you may experience feelings of guilt, shame and disappointment. You may feel that your body is failing you or you are failing your baby. It is important to know that every breastfeeding journey is different and valid no matter what it looks like.
The hormone fluctuations at the end of pregnancy signal the body to start making an increased volume of breast milk. Specifically, the sudden decrease in progesterone is thought to be the cause of the baby blues in the first few days after birth. For some women, this transition can trigger a much more serious depressive episode. If you are someone who experiences PMDD or is sensitive to hormone fluctuations, you may want to find support in the postpartum period.
So you may be asking, what can you do to set yourself up for a positive experience?
Here are some ideas:
Create a postpartum plan- Download our Postpartum Mental Health toolkit here
What do YOU want infant feeding to look like?
Do you want to exclusively breastfeed?
Pump and offer bottles?
Provide breastmilk and formula?
Connect with lactation support prenatally
Meet with an Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) to talk about your goals and how you can meet those goals with support.
Join a breastfeeding support group
Don’t wait, ask for help
If you experience pain, discomfort or just have questions, ask for help!
The hospital, your OB, and your pediatrician will have resources you can utilize at whatever stage of lactation you are in.
