How Chiropractic Care Can Help with Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding your infant is a beautiful thing and creates an amazing bonding experience. But those beautiful moments can often turn into frustration and panic if you start running into issues with breastfeeding. Chiropractic care is a safe and gentle option that helps correct a lot of issues that interfere with breastfeeding for both mom and baby.
"Day after day, I'm running around trying to take care of everyone else, leaving myself last on the list."
Sound like you?
This is a direct quote from a mom who recently visited a chiropractor looking for solutions to her stress.
After further investigation, it was uncovered that her posture while nursing did a lot more damage to her body than just back pain. See, when your shoulders are rolled in, your head is looking down at your beautiful baby, and the upper spine is rounded forward, you activate something called the sympathetic response.
The sympathetic response exists to protect us from danger. You can think of "sympathetic response" as the "gas pedal", or "flight or fight". If you are experiencing immediate, life-threatening danger, your body starts a response to save you from the danger. Increased heart beat, blood supply, and respiration should you need to run away, decrease in digestive function (because let's face it- if you're running from a bear your body doesn't give a 💩 about the smoothie you drank this morning...no pun intended).
Now, this sympathetic response is a 2 way street. Hunching your shoulders, looking down...that's a very protective posture. So your BODY ends up telling your BRAIN that it might be time to prepare for danger. Repeat this process several times a day for as long as your kid is breast feeding and BAM. You're stuck in this "gas pedal" can't calm down response. Feeling anxious, like you can't catch your breath, heart fluttering... makes sense right?
So what can you do? The benefits of breastfeeding are well known and I would NEVER suggest you stop feeding your baby the way you want to. I could tell you all kinds of things to fix your posture. The problem with that is, babies, especially older ones, are going to move and lay where they want to. It's simply not realistic advice.
What IS realistic advice is seeing a chiropractor. By making sure your upper back stays moving and functional as well as being able to stimulate the opposite "brake pedal" side of the nervous system, you can continue to feed your baby without all of the anxiety symptoms.
