16 days after giving birth to you, I was in panic mode. My milk supply dwindled. Gone was the feeling of having two boulders full of milk on my chest. The leaking stopped tremendously, and soaking through breast pads were not anymore a problem.

My fear? My milk production has gone down. What could have possibly caused the sudden change?

I’ve read that mental and physical stress can decrease the supply of breastmilk. I have been tired and anxious for a couple of days, perhaps because of lack of sleep and the pressure of household chores plus supervising three schoolboys. Might it be that stress?

My mother, on the other hand, told me that it may be because of the sinigang soup I ate and drank; the sourness of sinigang caused the decrease of milk supply, as relayed to her by a concerned neighbor. Is there some truth to it?

So for nursing mommies like me who might have experienced the same anxiety, fret not. In truth, our milk supply did not dwindle but has been regulated.

Milk supply dwindled.  What to do?

MOMI TIPS|  Milk supply dwindled.  What to do?

I have read that our body makes milk automatically, in response to the hormones in our bloodstream. So we will start making milk, even if we do not breastfeed our baby or express milk. More often than not, we overproduce milk in the beginning before we finally understand how much milk our baby needs.

After a few weeks or months even, with regular nursing, we will be able to adjust to the amount of milk our baby can consume. Our breasts will begin to feel less full, often soft, as our milk production begins to regulate. Again, this does not mean our milk supply has dried up, but our body has understood how much milk our little one needs on a daily basis.

Again, breastfeeding moms, the more our baby nurses, the more milk our body will produce. May we not tire of offering our milk to our little one. They don’t have anybody but us to depend on the most.

Happy breastfeeding, dear moms!

* Our Yael will be nine months already in a few days and I still breastfeed him.  I am so happy and proud of this achievement as I was not able to do this to my three other grown-up boys.  Thank you, Lord, for this blessing.

admberlin