During my medical training, I thought breastfeeding was as simple as holding your baby up to your breast and baby would naturally just feed. I didn’t realize how stressful breastfeeding could be until I became a mother. I struggled with breastfeeding my daughter Madi and supplemented with formula for the first few weeks. I felt
The frequency of breastfeeding varies from mother to mother, and depends on multiple factors including milk supply, milk extraction abilities of the baby, as well as the mother’s response to infant’s hunger and satiety cues. A mother’s ability to feed on demand means that she is able to breastfeed her infant in response to the
During medical school, I learned that babies require vitamin D supplementation for healthy bone development. However, other than bone health I was unaware of what the other benefits of vitamin D were until I had Madi. Postpartum, I wanted to understand why vitamin D was so important and why pediatricians recommended it. The information I
One mention of colic and you will be inundated with tips and tricks to help soothe your baby. One of the most common pieces of advice breastfeeding mothers hear is to change their diet. The most common diet change people suggest is for the mother to eliminate dairy from her diet. But is there any evidence that
Having an infant with a cold can be distressing for parents. Cough, congestion, and sore throats can affect their sleep, their eating habits, and they may be more irritable. Parents often bring their babies and young children into my office asking what they can do to alleviate their baby or child’s cold symptoms. Unfortunately, there is not
I found breastfeeding very challenging. I struggled with low milk supply early on, fortunately, as the weeks passed my milk supply improved. However, there are some mothers that struggle with breastmilk oversupply. The production of breast milk is determined by the infant’s demand. A woman’s breast will often produce enough milk to feed an infant, but
When Madi was 8 months old she suddenly decided that she was done with her soother and never looked back. That is, until I became pregnant with our second baby. The past few months I have caught Madi opening up the soothers I purchased for the new baby and putting them in her mouth. If
I was asked a very interesting question by a patient a few years ago “Dr. Liu, I’m almost 40 weeks pregnant and I want to go into labour, if I eat lots of dates will that help kick-start labour?” I had no idea what the answer to her question was, so we looked up the
I remember when I was pregnant with Madi. I was so excited when I found out I was pregnant and couldn’t wait to start baby shopping! However, upon stepping into a baby store I easily became overwhelmed with all of the options for every single item. Add in the opinions of every friend and family member,
If you are a nursing mother, at some point you may consider pumping your breast milk and storing it for future use. This will allow you to leave your baby in the care of others with a supply of breast milk for bottle-feeding. Whether you are manually expressing, or using a battery or electric pump, the