As my daughter is getting older, more and more people are starting to chime in that I need to stop nursing her. She is a little over a year old now, and it breaks my heart to think about not nursing her anymore.
It feels like once you start shoveling rice cereal into a baby's toothless mouth, everyone is all, "you still nurse your kid?" Uhm, yes. Yes, I do.
I do it for the obvious health benefits, and I do it because it soothes my baby girl, but I also do it because it helps us bond. If I am being totally honest, I have continued breastfeeding this long because I love that we can bond. I can hold her, and she can cuddle me, and everything around us just stops. That's how it was with my son. It's just like magic to me. It's a unicorn, or a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end of it kind of magic.
My sister-in-law recently had twin girls, and these beautiful babes were just the tiniest little things. Fragile preemies in the truest form. She worked hard to keep up her milk supply by pumping for her babies while they were in the NICU because breastfeeding is so important to meet their special nutritional needs. She’s still feeding them breastmilk even as she prepares to enter her medical residency!
Us mommas are all just trying the best we can to give our kiddos the world.
After learning more about my sister-in-law’s preemies and their nutritional needs, I found out that some of the tiniest preemies need their breast milk fortified with additional protein, calories and minerals to help them grow. In fact, it’s recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to ensure optimal nutrient intake, especially for preemies weighing less than 3 lb 5 oz.
To provide this added nutrition, hospitals use something called “Human Milk Fortifier” (HMF). Unfortunately, despite the name, nearly all HMFs are made with cow milk, and not human milk! I was shocked to learn this, as I truly believe that human breastmilk is best. And lots of research supports this, see here, here, here and here.
If you find yourself with preemie babies in the NICU, just know that there is a HMF made from 100% human milk. Prolacta Bioscience, this post’s sponsor, makes a HMF from breastmilk donated by mothers from all over the United States. No cows' milk is invited to this par-tay!
If you have a preemie and want to make sure they don’t receive fortifier that contains cow milk, ask your doctor about Prolacta.
This video says it all about how important this 100% human milk-based fortifier is and what a difference it can make for preemies in the NICU. After watching this video, I wanted to share this bit of information with you all today.
While this post is sponsored by Prolacta Bioscience, all opinions are my own.
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