These Acts of Help can Help a Mom Breastfeed Her Baby Longer!

I have always been an advocate of breastfeeding.

Breast milk not only provides baby the essential nutrients required for growth and development, it also protects the mother from the risks of breast cancer and osteoporosis.

One of the most often asked questions by readers to me as a mommy blogger is ‘How did you manage breastfeeding and other household chores along with your corporate career in the initial phase of your motherhood?’.

In my replies, I do no go much into the details of the days and nights wherein I have worked like a machine nursing baby, managing work and home. But today let me share some sneak peek.

Some nights would turn to sleepless nights attending to the demanding baby in one hand and tally accounts in excel sheets with another while some days I would end up with dishes piled up in the sink and the soiled heap of clothes waiting to be washed while I attend to the sick baby.

The next few days you would see me rushing to the daycare to express breast milk/breastfeed my baby at 11 am so that I can attend the office meeting at sharp 11.25.

5 years passed by, today when I look back at all the sacrifices I have made as a mother to breastfeed my daughter, I feel PROUD.

I am sure there are many moms like me who have been adamant on exclusively breastfeeding their babies.

But the credit for me being able to breastfeed my daughter exclusively is not mine alone.

There are a lot many people who have lend their support so that I could breastfeed my daughter without any stress – right from the dear husband who helped in managing the household chores once he is back from office, to the boss who allotted lenient breaks to breast feed my baby during office hours, to my neighbor aunty who brings in the freshly cooked Maharashtrian ‘daal bhaat’ or ‘roti-sabzi’ every night while I nurse my baby after work.

Each one of them played a major role in helping me nurse my daughter till she was 1 year old.

It’s said ‘it takes a village to raise a child’.

Unfortunately, the majority of us don’t have the privilege of having an entire village to raise our babies mainly because we are in nuclear families. To add to that most of us, are working moms.

So how can a new mother have that much needed support system in the initial phase of her motherhood – especially breastfeeding? What if she is a working mom – what becomes the helping hand for her then?

While most of the moms are aware of the benefits of breastfeeding, many of them do not get the support to breastfeed their children for as long as they would like.

To spread awareness among the people in nursing mother’s lives, Nestle India has come up with a campaign named ‘It Takes All of Us’ on the occasion of World Breastfeeding Week.

The campaign focuses on the requirement and importance of a strong support system in the life of a nursing mom as she is often overburdened with the responsibility of caring for the baby and managing the household chores. It is, even more, taxing for working moms with their work responsibilities.

This, in turn, adds to the stress and mental strain resulting in mothers dropping out of breastfeeding.

‘It Takes All of Us’ stresses on the fact that when mothers receive support, they are able to breastfeed longer. Hence just as shown in the video above, it calls out to the grandmas, colleagues, neighbors and all the stakeholders to lend their proactive support like caring for the child while mother could rest, helping out at workplace etc enabling longer nursing time and stress-free phase for the mother.

I have taken the pledge in being that stake holder to provide happy and stress-free nursing time for mothers around me in all the ways I could.

Have YOU?