Breastfeeding Support
There are many benefits to breastfeeding for both babies and mothers. That’s why we encourage all moms to breastfeed for at least 12 months after delivery and continue to support them throughout the process.
Specially trained lactation counselors and consultants are available to help you learn how to breastfeed and answer any questions during your hospital stay and after you return home. All nurses are also trained to assist with breastfeeding and lactation support.
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Forrest General Hospital: Lactation counselors are available daily from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at 601-288-3763
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Highland Community Hospital: Please call Labor and Delivery at 601-358-9785 and request to be connected to a lactation specialist
Lactation consultations are available by appointment upon request.
View our Childbirth and Breastfeeding education videos
Breastfeeding Benefits Your Baby
Early breast milk is very rich in nutrients and antibodies to protect your baby. This thick yellow milk that you make during pregnancy and just after birth is called colostrum.
As your baby grows, your breast milk changes to provide everything your baby needs to grow. Colostrum changes into what is called mature milk. By the third to fifth day after birth, the mature milk has just the right amount of fat, sugar, water, and protein to help your baby continue to grow.
Breastfeeding Terms
Colostrum: The thick yellow breast milk you make during pregnancy and right after birth.
Nutrients: Any food substance that provides energy or helps build tissue.
Antibodies: Blood proteins made in response to germs or other foreign substances that enter the body. Antibodies help fight illness by attaching to germs.
Breast milk is easier to digest. For most babies — especially premature babies — breast milk is easier to digest than formula. The proteins in formula are made from cow's milk, and it takes time for babies' stomachs to adjust to digesting them.
Breast milk fights disease. The cells, hormones, and antibodies in breast milk protect babies from illness. This protection is unique because formula cannot match the chemical makeup of human breast milk. Babies who breastfeed are shown to experience fewer ear infections, urinary tract infections, allergies, and illnesses requiring hospitalization.
Breastfeeding Benefits You
Breastfeeding offers a unique way for mothers to bond with their newborns. Physical contact is important to newborns and it helps them feel secure, warm, and comforted. The skin-to-skin contact can boost the mother's oxytocin levels, which is a hormone that helps milk flow and calms the mother.
Breastfeeding makes life easier. When you breastfeed, there are no bottles and nipples to sterilize. You don't have to buy, measure or mix formula. And there are no bottles to warm in the middle of the night. Breastfeeding may take more effort at first, but it makes life easier once you and your baby settle into a routine.
Breastfeeding saves money. Choosing to breastfeed could save your family over $1,500 a year in formula and feeding supplies costs. Breastfed babies have a reduced risk of illness, meaning your baby will likely need less doctors visits and you'll miss less time from work.
Forrest General's Milk Depot
Forrest General's milk depot provides mothers and babies with access to human breast milk from a donor. Many times mothers who give birth to premature babies are often in a fragile or critical condition themselves and are unable to breastfeed and provide their babies with the nutrients they need the most. The milk depot gives lactating mothers who wish to donate a convenient drop-off location here in Hattiesburg instead of having to mail a donation.
What is a milk depot?
The demand for human donor milk in hospital neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) continues to rise. Some mothers are unable to provide their own breast milk because of a lack of supply or for medical reasons. These mothers rely on donor milk as the primary source for their premature infant’s nutrition.
Who can donate milk?
The milk depot at Forrest General is serviced primarily by the
Mothers’ Milk Bank
in Jackson, Mississippi (MMBM). Women who are currently breastfeeding infants under one year old are eligible to be screened at no charge to become breast milk donors. The milk depot at Forrest General makes it easier for all Hattiesburg-area donors to donate this scarce resource that has life-saving impact.
How do mothers get the milk?
The MMBM fills prescriptions written by health care providers for the most fragile babies who need the life-giving and sustaining nutrition of donor human milk to thrive.
How can I donate?
For information on how you can donate, call the Forrest General Lactation Department at 601-288-4554, You can also call Mothers' Milk Bank at 601-939-5504. Mothers' Milk Bank of Mississippi is open 9am-3pm, view their website
HERE
.
About Mothers’ Milk Bank of Mississippi
The Mothers’ Milk Bank of Mississippi
is a non-profit organization whose mission is to accept, pasteurize and dispense donor human milk by physician prescription, primarily to premature and ill infants.
