Whether you’re a first-time mom or growing your family, MU Health Care is here to support your breastfeeding journey — no matter what that looks like.
To help you reach your breastfeeding goals, MU Health Care offers breastfeeding support at every stage of pregnancy and parenthood.
How We Can Help with Breastfeeding
Our goal is to help you and your baby have a positive breastfeeding experience. Certified lactation consultants are available for appointments before and after delivery at multiple clinic locations, as well as at the bedside in our Birthing Centers.
Services include:
- Breastfeeding classes and support groups
- Education and encouragement to get you started with breastfeeding
- Help selecting and using a breast pump
- Support to overcome common breastfeeding challenges, such as pain with latching or low milk supply
During your first consultation, we will:
- Ask you questions about your pregnancy, delivery and breastfeeding history
- Ask you about your specific goals for feeding your baby
- Check your baby’s weight and observe a breastfeeding or pumping session
If needed, our team can work with your doctor to order tests that can identify hormone issues or other factors that may cause breastfeeding problems.
When to Get Breastfeeding Support
We encourage you to schedule a one-on-one appointment with a lactation consultant if you have any questions or concerns about breastfeeding. We can help with:
- Latching difficulties
- Breast or bottle refusal
- Engorgement (painful swelling caused by expansion and pressure of stored breast milk)
- Too much milk supply
- Too little milk supply
- Inadequate weight gain for your baby
- Feedings that seem too short or too long
- Mastitis (breast inflammation)
- Sore nipples
- Pacifier introduction (after breastfeeding is well established)
See our locations to schedule an appointment with a lactation consultant.
Breastfeeding Support Services
Whether you're pregnant and planning ahead, or you've just encountered a new breastfeeding issue, we can help. Our services include:
Lactation Consultations
Lactation consultants at MU Health Care offer personalized breastfeeding support from pregnancy through weaning. We offer support in our Birthing Centers and at several outpatient locations.
Our team uses on the most recent evidence and medical insight to provide support, such as:
- Showing you feeding positions that can help reduce pain
- Choosing and navigating common issues with breast pumps
- Starting with or transitioning to bottle-feeding your baby
Help with Formula Feeding
If you choose to use formula for some or all feedings, we can provide education and counseling to help you and your baby get the most out of formula feeding. We help families make an informed and educated feeding decision, as encouraged by Baby Friendly® standards. Our nurses and lactation consultants can show you how to:
- Get benefits typically associated with breastfeeding (such as skin-to-skin contact) while formula feeding
- Mix formula safely
- Find the bottle and nipple flow best suited to your baby
Osteopathic Manual Treatment
This gentle, hands-on treatment provided by a specially trained breastfeeding and lactation medicine doctor at our Birthing Center in Columbia can help loosen your and your infant’s bodies to decrease breast and nipple pain. It can also improve your baby's latch and reduce problems such as fussiness, spit-up and constipation.
Breastfeeding Classes
Our lactation consultants regularly lead classes to give expecting and new parents a practical, hands-on introduction to breastfeeding.
Tiger Tot Mommies Support Group
Tiger Tot Mommies is a free support group for new parents that meets twice per month — one day and one evening. It covers topics related to feeding and parenting. There is always a lactation consultant and baby scale at each meeting.
Working with Specialists When Needed
Some breastfeeding or latching problems require care from other specialists, such as speech-language pathologists who assist with swallowing, aspiration or bottle-feeding concerns. Additionally, tongue tied babies can benefit from a lactation consultant trained to help with latching or a physician trained to assess and treat the tongue tie if needed. Other issues may require collaboration with a nutritionist. At MU Health Care, we offer many of these services and can coordinate as needed.
- Baby-Friendly® designation: MU Health Care is a designated Baby-Friendly® Hospital by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The designation recognizes our commitment to supporting breastfeeding and parent-child bonding while you're in the hospital. When you choose us for labor and delivery, we can help you start breastfeeding within an hour of birth to support your and your baby’s bonding and nutritional needs. Our Birthing Centers also support rooming-in with parents, allowing mothers to be with their infants 24 hours per day in most cases. This promotes bonding and means you can breastfeed whenever your baby wants to.
- Doctor certified in breastfeeding and lactation medicine: We’re proud to have mid-Missouri's first doctor certified in breastfeeding and lactation medicine on our team. Our breastfeeding medicine clinic also includes two other doctors and a nurse practitioner working together to bring you the best care. If more complex breastfeeding issues arise, you can receive an expert diagnosis and specialized medical care.
- Timely answers to your questions: Our breastfeeding support team maintains an online messaging system, so you can send questions at any time of day. We’ll usually answer your questions within 24 hours.
- Leaders in lactation and breastfeeding medicine: Our experts are proud to train the next generation of doctors to help ensure that the highest level of care for mothers and their babies is passed on to future practitioners.
