“The biological norm

provides a bridge

from birth to

successful breastfeeding.”

This groundbreaking program, Bridge to Breastfeeding,

empowers Facilitators with a whole new approach to prenatal education.

This is not actually a breastfeeding class!

This is about facilitating mental, emotional, and logistical preparation for the entire transition into life with a new baby, especially with a goal to breastfeed.

“This is a deep dive into prenatal preparation for the postpartum period.”
 


For too long, professionals working with prenatal families have struggled with enabling a smooth postpartum feeding journey for parents and their new babies. Bridge to Breastfeeding wants to change that! There are measures that can be taken, ahead of time, to set families up for success. Now professionals can share that in an obtainable, cohesive package that can be conveyed with nurturing and empowerment.


So often, families enter into the postpartum period wholly unprepared for the experience. They’re overwhelmed with the needs and nuances of caring for a newborn and are inadvertently led astray from their feeding goals. Many professionals struggle with a lack of tools for real mental and emotional prenatal preparation to provide families. Breastfeeding classes often discuss details like latching, positioning, and supply that parents experience very differently in practical application. These families go on to struggle, when actually living with their newborn baby, despite having learned “the basics.”

“ Parents’ vision for life with a new baby turns out to be very different from their reality.”

Bridge to Breastfeeding takes a completely different approach! This program prepares families to establish breastfeeding smoothly, by using the biological norm as a framework and very practical planning. The teaching methods involve walking families through creating an accurate vision for the neonatal period and the demands of establishing breastfeeding. Through a deeper understanding of how certain behaviors reinforce breastfeeding success, families can effectively plan for their specific personalities, needs, and situation. Bridge to Breastfeeding gives professionals the tools to walk families through this process with connection and adaptivity, so that everyone enjoys the whole process!

Core Concepts

  • Since breastfeeding (and feeding in general) is a biologically normal activity, understanding how biologically normal environments support this process has incredible value. This means prioritizing things like skin to skin contact, social engagement, womb to world transition, and utilizing innate infant feeding reflexes.

  • Since it is not natural or normal for new parents to live in isolation, supportive community is needed for meeting needs immediately postpartum. As this is not built in for most parents in many current cultures, parents need to preventatively create a plan for filling gaps in support, as well as preparing those who are available to provide support in how to truly be helpful.

  • The details that frequently undermine feeding goals, especially the establishment of breastfeeding, are most often mental and emotional overwhelm. A big part of this is that parents, more often than not, are blindsided by the intense needs of a newborn baby. Creating awareness of this and a plan for navigating it increases success.

  • When parents have realistic expectations, a plan for meeting their own needs while in the intense neonatal phase, and access to quality resources, most problems can be identified, prevented, or resolved before they become entirely consuming or unfixable.

Bridge to Breastfeeding

Families develop a wholistic vision for life with their new baby.

 

Invest in a program that will cover mental, emotional, physical, and environmental preparation for ease in establishing breastfeeding!