Getting Babies to Latch for Breastfeeding

Video Transcript

For this demonstration I'm going to be using our little breast balloon. And there's, you want to be able to support your breast and have your, compress your breast so as much of the breast fits into the baby's mouth as possible. So you're going to want the compression to match the direction of the baby's mouth. If the baby's laying like this and his mouth is vertical, you're going to want to come underneath here and compress the breast vertically, almost like a taco. And you want to make sure that your fingers are far away from the areola, so that you do not get in the way of the baby's mouth latching onto the breast. So you're going to want to wait until the baby opens his mouth really wide, really wide, and then put the baby on the breast. Obviously our little baby doll not opening his mouth around the breast, but it's good for an example. Now if you were holding the baby in a different position so that his mouth were horizontal, you would hold the breast this way to compress it, more like a sandwich. And again, you want to keep your fingers behind the areola so that they don't get in the baby's way, because if you're here, the baby can't get a good latch. So you want to be back here and do the compression from back there. The other thing you want to keep in mind is that the baby's mouth or lips should be one half inch behind the base of the nipple, so here or here. Some moms have larger areolas, so the baby's not going to be able to get the whole areola in the mouth. Some women have very small areolas, so the whole areola would be covered by the baby's mouth. Here in this position, we're going to compress and the baby's going to be brought on here, just like so. And now I'll be showing you the cradle position.

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