Feeding your baby, and the pressure around it
Support is worth asking for. Guilt is not part of the treatment.
Skin-to-skin contact in the first hour is the single best-supported thing that helps breastfeeding get started, which is why it has its own topic. Beyond that, the most useful intervention is skilled help early rather than late.
Ask for a lactation consultant on day one rather than day three, and ask again after you go home if feeding is painful. Pain with feeding is a sign that something is fixable, not a sign that you are doing it wrong.
On the pressureSupport for breastfeeding and pressure about breastfeeding are different things, and women routinely get the second when they asked for the first. If a feeding conversation is making you feel worse rather than better supported, you are allowed to say so and to ask for someone else.
Where this comes from:
232. Moore ER, Brimdyr K, Blair A, Jonas W, Lillisköld S, Svensson K, et al. Immediate or early skin-to-skin contact for mothers and their healthy newborn infants. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2025;(10):CD003519.
233. Moore ER, Anderson GC, Bergman N. Early skin-to-skin contact for mothers and their healthy newborn infants. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007;(3):CD003519.
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This page is educational. It supports the conversation with your own clinicians. It is not consent to any treatment, and it cannot assess you. If you are worried about a symptom now, see urgent warning signs.