Christmas is a beautiful time of year to show off your new baby to your family. All those extended Aunt’s Uncles and Grandparents ready for a snuggle with your sweet baby!

This is all absolutely wonderful, however did you know that the highest incidence of mastitis is on Boxing Day? The day after big events is a really common time for mastitis to occur. 

Why does this happen? At home, Mum and Baby do lots of regular, frequent feeds, often taking their time and having lots of boobie snuggles. But when your baby is being passed around and held by everyone else, maybe being kept quiet or asleep in those loving grandma arms, you may find that you accidentally skip a feed, or you feel bad taking the baby back, so you go longer between feeds. Another thing that can happen to our lovely Mums who are doing a million things, organising all the joy, presents and food, is that we get a bit burnout and don’t get enough rest or food and hydration for ourselves.

This years world breastfeeding weeks theme is all about making a difference to working parents.

With that in mind, here are 6 of my tips for planning for returning to work.

There isn’t always one obvious cause of mastitis. Some of the detective work we have to do is asking lots of questions about your history. There can be some strange things that make someone unfortunately more susceptible to mastitis. There are the obvious ones, not fully draining the breast, skipping feeds or a poor latch. But sometimes a perfect storm of stress, trauma coming to surface, lack of sleep, poor snacking habits and a body prone to inflammation can trigger it. As always, seek help and try to be aware of what might be triggering for you so that you can take steps to manage your situation.

SO HOW DOES ANTENATAL COLOSTRUM COLLECTION HELP US?

Well, it does a number of things. It helps women get to know their body, learn about their breasts and start stimulating their breast tissue, glands and ducts. The colostrum that is collected can be saved, frozen and taken to the hospital to be given to the baby if required. It can also help to kickstart your breasts so if anything does cause a delay, then we have given everything a little pre birth boost. It can also prevent unnecessary formula use if we have it in our back pocket, so for that reason, I do recommend giving it a go.