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Cluster Feedings and Postpartum Recovery
3 Steps to Success
By Jennifer Hodges
For many women, the joy of childbirth can be quickly overshadowed by around-the-clock nursing sessions. These nursing sessions are often called cluster feeding. Cluster feeding occurs throughout Baby's first year of life, and is most difficult during the first month – when Mom is recovering from birth and Baby is adjusting to life outside the womb.
For many first-time moms, these frequent nursing sessions cause fear and confusion. "Oh no!" thought Stacy Hunt of Pittsburgh, Pa. "He's not getting enough milk." This is a very common concern of new moms when babies seem to eat around the clock. Jane McKissock of Tampa, Fla., had heard of cluster feedings before the birth of her first child but was still surprised at how long her newborn daughter wanted to nurse "I would nurse her 20 minutes on each side, and then within one minute of unlatching her, my mom would be bringing her back to me saying she was hungry again," McKissock says.
Debbie Albert, doctorate in counseling and certified lactation consultant, says that cluster feedings are "completely normal, and moms need to accept them as a fact of life as Baby uses these feedings to increase milk supply." She says to think of Baby's belly like the gas tank in a car. "Cars need gas to run, and most vehicles always get the same miles per gallon," she says. "If your car increases in size, so does the amount of gallons needed in the gas tank to keep it running. A baby is the same way; as Baby increases in size, so does the amount of milk it needs. This is where cluster feeding comes into play. Baby seems to nurse around the clock to signal the breast to make more milk for the increase in Baby's size."
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