HealthInfo Canterbury
Overview of breastfeeding
Breast milk provides the best food for pēpi (babies) as they grow and is the only food and drink they need for the first six months of their life.
Even after six months, health professionals recommend that you carry on breastfeeding your pēpi (baby) while introducing other foods. In fact, the World Health Organisation recommends that breastfeeding continues for two years or longer.
Colostrum, which is the first milk you produce after birth, is the perfect food for your newborn. You make just a small amount of it, but it contains lots of antibodies, which help to protect your pēpi from infections. It also contains prebiotics, which help make sure your pēpi has healthy gut bacteria.
Breastfeeding benefits
Breastfeeding has many important benefits for mothers and pēpi.
For mothers it:
- helps you bond with your pēpi
- can help you lose your pēpi weight
- gives you a good chance to rest and relax while you're feeding
- reduces your chances of getting breast and ovarian cancer
- is free and saves you time, as breastfeeds are ready to go!
For pēpi, breast milk:
- is the perfect food
- protects them from tummy bugs, ear, bladder and chest infections, wheezing and asthma
- reduces their chance of sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI)
- in the long term, protects them from diabetes, obesity and Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
Preparing to breastfeed
You can do several things while you're pregnant and straight after your pēpi baby is born to get ready to breastfeed.
- Talk to your midwife, GP or lactation consultant about any questions you have about breastfeeding.
- Check out the help you can get from the Canterbury Breastfeeding Advocacy Service. It offers free breastfeeding education sessions, breastfeeding support groups (pregnant women are welcome) and mother-to-mother breastfeeding peer counsellors.
- Waitaha Primary Health has a Community-Based Lactation Support Service that provides specialist support for mothers with complex breastfeeding issues at community-based clinics, at home, through individual appointments and through email, text or telephone follow-up if needed.
- Look at the Ministry of Health's page on Breastfeeding: preparing during pregnancy. It includes a video of women talking about their breastfeeding experiences.
- Have skin-to-skin contact with your pēpi straight after they're born, giving them time to latch on your breast. It may take a wee while for them to do so, but that's OK. This BreastfeedingNZ video has useful information about initiating early feeds.
There are some common problems women can have with breastfeeding. But if you run into any difficulties, your midwife can support you and help you to overcome them.
HealthInfo recommends the following pages
On the next page: Starting to breastfeed
Written by HealthInfo clinical advisers. Last reviewed December 2021.
SourcesReview key: HIBRF-24381
