The Importance of Initiation of Breastfeeding Within One Hour of Birth

By yashika bhavsar ( Nutritionists) | Updated: 15/05/2020

I am a nutritionist by profession and infant and young child feeding has always been my passion. I always used to counsel pregnant ladies about the importance of early initiation of breastfeeding, which is within one hour of birth. The sad part was they never understood its importance, perhaps because till then I was not a mother. At the back of their mind, they always thought, ‘let her time come and then we will see.’ Frankly, I was hurt, but my advice was legitimate.

Now, let me tell you all the importance of early initiation.

1) In the first hour of birth, the child is very active and if at that time they are kept on mothers breast, the attachment becomes easy as the taste of the fluid on the breast is the same as the amniotic fluid in the womb.

2) It helps the mother to produce milk faster.

3) The immunity of the child is yet to be developed and, thus, formula feeding can become dangerous.

4) If the child is breastfed, he/she can start suckling without any problems

Because I knew the above benefits I wanted to serve every child its first right. I have counselled many but never saw its results. Thus, I decided not to counsel anyone further but to show the world how it works. Now many of them think that after c section milk production takes 2 to 3 days time. No, this is not true. Milk production starts during pregnancy time and the only thing that works is the attachment of the child. The more the child is attached to the mother’s breasts, the more milk will be produced.

I had undergone a c section delivery and was totally against the idea of giving formula feed . Thus, I counselled my mother, mother in law and husband not to give formula feed to my child. I even told the doctor that I don’t want to give formula feed and she agreed.

The first 24 hours are critical for effective breastfeeding and, bingo, both the mothers were around to help me feed my baby in a resting position. Thus, to conclude my story, I can now definitely counsel new moms to breastfeed and not formula feed, with the 1000% confidence that I have gone through the situation.

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