Fact check: how your breastmilk changes in appearance … and what it means
The internet is a wonderful resource but also a dangerous place to source information!
Right now, a self-proclaimed “sleep expert” is sharing inaccurate and misleading content about scheduling breastfeeds to achieve the optimal breastmilk. Their claims are not backed by evidence and, in fact, are debunked by multiple data. But when good-looking content slides into your newsfeed, you can be forgiven for believing it.
Breastmilk is a complex substance which changes throughout the day, throughout each feed, in response to feedback from the baby to the breast. The idea that you can use a social construct of time to control the composition at a feed is ridiculous. Using the appearance of expressed breastmilk as a tool to determine quality went out with the dinosaurs but here we are, discussing it again.
Breastfeeding by schedule is detrimental to milk supply, infant weight gains and leads to premature weaning for the majority of babies. Controlling infant feeding by the clock will lead to problems. Babies need free access to the breast to establish and maintain milk production. Newborn babies, especially in the first months, feed most of their time awake and that is the secret to milk production. Watch the baby, not the clock! More feeds today than yesterday? Terrific! More is better.
Anyone advising you to schedule breastfeeds is a big red flag. Do not follow that advice if breastfeeding is something you want to continue.
Avoid “sleep trainers” and all the masks they hide behind. Anyone promising to make your young baby sleep longer will not be supporting your breastfeeding goals. Delayed breastfeeds, timed breastfeeds, routine breastfeeds, limited breastfeeds … all will undo your work establishing milk supply and will steadily reduce it.
As to “rich, creamy breastmilk”, how it appears when artificially extracted from the breast by hands or pump has no relevance to quality. Breastmilk is never poor quality. It can’t be. This is basic biology at work.
