Marianne Dugmore Lactation Consultant

15/05/2025

“I’ve heard that milk production can drop when I get my period. Is that true? Does that mean I won’t have enough milk for my baby?” Concerns about milk production top the “worry list” for many new parents. [1] Among these worries is whether the return of the me**es will affect milk produ...

10/04/2025

How many mothers receive bad advice about taking prescribed drugs and having diagnostic procedures while nursing? MANY, according to this fascinating 2025 study. Thank goodness champions like author Karolina Morze are working hard to improve the system! Read all about it here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40183105/

09/04/2025

I often help mums who have been virtually traumatised by a hiccup in weight gain. Please read this and anything else that Nancy posts.

Just like in the fictional Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon, where “all the children are above average,” many parents believe there is something wrong if their breastfeeding baby’s weight isn’t above the 50th percentile. While it is human to want our children to excel, the assumption that babi...

08/03/2025

All over the world, many stop breastfeeding soon after they start because of common challenges. This free video shows an approach that can make early nursing much easier and reduce problems by half. What was your experience? Did you ever try this? https://naturalbreastfeeding.com/

26/10/2024

Hold them when they cry. They’re not manipulating you. They need you to show them their needs are important.

Feed them when they ask. They’re not greedy. Diet culture hasn’t taught them to override their body’s signals yet.

Meet them with love and guidance, not anger. They’re not naughty. Their brains haven’t developed fully yet.

Go to them in the night. They’re not wrapping you around their little finger. They need you so they can feel safe.

You are the world to them, and they learn that they are good, valid, and safe from your responses.

Ignoring their cries for support teaches them that they are not important, they don’t know their own bodies, they should be ashamed of their feelings, and that no one is coming to help them.

11/10/2024

Do you ever wonder what makes mother’s milk so astonishingly good for babies? According to this 2024 study, during the first year of life, human milk acts like a “pacemaker” that protects babies against asthma by regulating their gut and nasal microbiomes. To learn more about this fascinating process, check out this study here:
https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0092-8674%2824%2900782-7

07/09/2024

http://www.naturalbreastfeeding.com/ Essie was taught the football hold in the hospital. At home, she tried using Natural Breastfeeding positions, but strugg...

05/09/2024

In my last blog post, I told a military mother who had returned to work at six weeks postpartum that she was making as much milk as her thriving baby would ever need. To meet her breastfeeding goal of one year, I told her, “all she had to do was maintain her milk production.” But maintaining mil...

30/08/2024

Just like in the fictional Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon, where “all the children are above average,” many parents believe there is something wrong if their breastfeeding baby’s weight isn’t above the 50th percentile. While it is human to want our children to excel, the assumption that babi...

25/08/2024

I'd forgotten about this article by my hero Howard Chilton. I still love it.

https://www.babydoc.com.au/my-babys-suffering-from-wind/?fbclid=IwY2xjawE4nkhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTCEyYeRqrik2FLMLpcuQloQgW4kOeCBICDivII814HMwVNcK0YsuvKd1g_aem_mMk29bs7UJ6WFzrijG-i5Q

WARNING: This article may annoy you if your baby ‘definitely had bad wind’ and burping him was apparently essential for him/her to settle. If so, you can stop reading here! But I have to follow the science, my experience and insight.   When babies get upset or stressed for whatever reason, they...

21/08/2024

12/06/2024

The truth about cluster feeding:

Were you told that cluster feeding is where your baby feeds lots over a couple of hours?

Did you then find that as soon as 5pm rolls around, your otherwise calm newborn turned into a frantic baby bird, furious when a b**b isn't in their mouth, but apparently just as furious when a b**b Is in their mouth?

Did this make you worry that your milk had dried up, while you paced and rocked, and cried for like 3 hours every night?

Yeah. Same.

Of course, for some people cluster feeding is as simple as frequent feeds. But for many dyads, its an anxiety producing nightmare!

You've probably noticed that your breasts are pretty soft during cluster feeding, and it may be hard to hand express or pump during this time. This is because volume is low. BUT! The milk that your baby is accessing is really high in fat, as the softer a breast is, the higher in fat the milk that's in there is.

So, what's happening, is you have a grumpy, tired, probably over stimulated from life newborn, and a totally normal slow flow of milk. This can make babies more annoyed, so they go red and arch away and scream at the b**b.

BUT they ARE getting milk - milk that is higher in fat than usual - and which *might* help them sleep for just a little longer once they're done yelling about it.

This on and off angry feeding is also most likely helping your milk supply - its frequent stimulation, which keeps milk making hormones high.

Of course, there are caveats here. If your baby is struggling to gain weight on your milk alone, your newborn under 6 weeks of age isn't giving you lots of daily dirty nappies, or you have pain during breastfeeding, please get some more personalised support.