One of the recommendations that I think should be generalized and offered both to women who are pregnant and to women who have just had a baby is to go to a breastfeeding group, either one created by mothers who breastfeed or have breastfed, who are usually certified lactation consultants, either one created by the professionals of a health center.
I believe it because information is power, and what a woman can receive in these workshops is that, information, and then have enough tools to act, seek help or whatever it takes. Proof of this is that a recent study shows that going to these breastfeeding groups can reduce visits by half in pediatric consultations.
The study was carried out by those responsible for the breastfeeding workshop at the Fuente de San Luis health center in Valencia, which also found that the information they receive ensures continuity of breastfeeding and avoids unwanted dropouts (due to mother).
To do the study, they decided to compare the frequency of visits by illness in pediatric consultations of infants whose mothers had attended the lactation workshop with that of a random sample of children of the same age whose mothers had never gone.
In the words of its authors:
The most striking aspect of the study was that children who had come to the breastfeeding workshop attended an average of 6.9 times in a year to consult their pediatrician for a health problem, while in those who never went through the workshop this average rose up to 12.06 times a year, almost double.
The reason for this comes from two great benefits, one that babies of those mothers are breastfed for longer than babies of mothers who do not receive that support (and it is already known that babies who breastfeed less have a higher risk of infection ) and another, perhaps more important in this matter (it is my perception), that the mothers who come to these groups have more security in what they do and in their capabilities when caring for your children.
Maite Hernández, a pediatrician at the center, whose breastfeeding workshop has more and more attending mothers every year, says the following:
Breastfeeding is the gold standard of infant and young child feeding. But in a society like ours in which we have lost the culture of breastfeeding, breastfeeding mothers often do not receive the necessary support and, when a problem arises, they have no one to consult. The loss of breastfeeding is a Public Health problem that initiatives like this can alleviate.
So you know, if you want to receive information, if you want to have decision-making power, if you want to know what some of the problems you may have when you are mothers or if you want to solve some that are presenting now that you are, do not hesitate to looking for a breastfeeding group, especially because it is not a talk, it is not a place to listen to the "brick" and keep four things, but because it is a place to go to every week and where the greatest support comes many times from other mothers who have lived the same, and the experience It can sometimes be more valuable than theory.
