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Breastfeeding Support & Resources

Committed to Helping You Breastfeed

At BCH, we support moms-to-be and new moms who want and are able to give their babies a healthy start in life through breastfeeding. Our Family Birth Center at Foothills Hospital is here to help you take advantage of all the benefits of breastfeeding by providing any needed education or services before your baby is born, while you’re in the hospital and after you go home.

Breastfeeding: Good for Baby and Mom, Too

Breast milk is the perfect, natural food for your baby. Babies can easily digest breast milk, and colostrum — the thick milk moms-to-be make during pregnancy and just after birth — helps your baby's digestive system grow.

Breast milk also provides unmatched health benefits for both baby and mom.

Infants who are breastfed have a reduced risk of:

  • Asthma
  • Lower respiratory infection
  • Certain allergies
  • Childhood obesity
  • Eczema
  • Ear infections
  • Childhood leukemia
  • Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
  • Gastrointestinal infections (diarrhea/vomiting)

Breastfeeding can help lower a mother’s risk of:

  • High blood pressure
  • Type 2 diabetes
  • Breast and ovarian cancer
  • Osteoporosis

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Getting Off to a Good Start

Getting off to a good start with breastfeeding leads to a healthy supply of breast milk, fewer breast problems for you and a satisfied baby. Here are the ways our routine care for all newborns can help you successfully breastfeed right from the start.

  • Skin-to-skin contact soon after birth: As soon as your full-term, healthy baby is born, he or she will be placed skin-to-skin, belly-down, directly on your chest. Snuggling skin-to-skin increases the release of the hormone oxytocin in the mother, which stimulates breast milk production and helps newborns breastfeed longer. Also, placing babies skin-to-skin after birth keeps them warm and calm, as well as stabilizing their breathing rate, blood sugar and heart rate.
  • Rooming-in: All our new moms and infants room together day and night to encourage mother-baby bonding, minimize mother-baby separation and promote early breastfeeding for moms who wish to do so. Staying together round-the-clock also helps you learn your baby’s feeding cues and build confidence in caring for your baby, all under the expert guidance of our highly trained staff.
  • Breastfeeding consults: With the help of our nurses and board-certified lactation (breastfeeding) consultants, many mothers who want to breastfeed are able to get off to a good start during their hospital stay. For special concerns or struggles, a lactation consultant will help create a plan with your health care team.

Classes to Take Before Your Baby is Born

Taking one of our breastfeeding classes while pregnant will help you and your partner prepare and ask questions before your newborn’s arrival. Classes cover many breastfeeding basics such as positioning, latching, reading your baby’s hunger signals and knowing when your baby is getting enough breast milk.

Click here to view our available parenting and birthing classes.

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Lactation Services and Support Once You’re Home

Because some challenges can occur after you go home, our board-certified lactation consultants are available to help whenever breastfeeding issues arise. They’re available through:

  • Breastfeeding consults: With the help of our nurses and board-certified lactation (breastfeeding) consultants, many mothers who want to breastfeed are able to do so during their hospital stay. For special concerns or struggles, a lactation consultant will help create a plan with your health care team.
  • Outpatient consultations: Our board-certified lactation consultants are available for in-person or virtual visits. The Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to cover lactation consultations with no co-pay or deductible. Contact your insurance company for further information on their requirements. Medicaid is accepted. If you do not have insurance, you will be billed for services. Call 303-415-7230 to make an appointment.
  • Phone advice: We are available by phone at 303-415-7230 seven days a week for questions that can be answered over the phone. There is no charge for this service.
  • Breastfeeding support group: Taking part in our breastfeeding support group after your baby is born gives you a chance to get your questions answered in a social setting. Click here to register for our Breastfeeding support group.
  • Breast pumps and breastfeeding supplies: We have breast pumps available for rent at both short- and long-term rates, and sell Ameda ComfortGel Pads and other breastfeeding aids. Please call 303-415-7230 for prices and availability.
  • Mothers' Milk Bank: Our Family Birth Center at Foothills Hospital is a drop-off location for donor breast milk for Mothers’ Milk Bank (MMB) – a program of Rocky Mountain Children’s Health Foundation. MMB is a distributor of donor human milk to medically fragile babies in neonatal intensive care units (NICU) across the nation. MMB safely screens, collects, processes and dispenses donated human milk as a community service, providing human milk to babies whose own mothers cannot supply the milk to meet their baby’s needs. The Family Birth Center at Foothills Hospital is also a “depot” for BCH families looking to order or buy milk for their newborn upon discharge from the Family Birth Center at Foothills Hospital. For more information or to become a donor call 303-415-7230.

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When to Call a Lactation Consultant

Our lactation consultants are registered nurses who have completed extra training and received certification as an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC).

They can be of great help with:

  • Nipple pain or trauma
  • Flat or inverted nipples
  • Concerns about your milk supply (too much or too little)
  • Engorged breasts
  • Latching and position problems
  • Concerns about baby’s weight gain
  • A premature baby
  • Breast refusal
  • Infant feeding poorly at the breast
  • Infant reflux
  • Adoptive breastfeeding
  • Re-lactation
  • Back-to-work plan

To make an appointment, call the Lactation Scheduling and Help Line at 303-415-7230.

Baby-Friendly: BCH Supports Breastfeeding Moms

Our Family Birth Center at Foothills Hospital has achieved the highly prestigious international Baby-Friendly designation, which recognizes our efforts in giving babies a healthy start in life. The designation requires birthing facilities to have policies that enhance mother-baby bonding and, if they choose, provide mothers with the information, confidence and skills needed to successfully initiate and continue breastfeeding their babies. In order to become Baby-Friendly, a hospital must implement the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding.

Go to babyfriendlyusa.org to learn more. Also, read Baby-Friendly: What It Means (And Doesn't Mean).

If Breastfeeding Isn’t an Option or Desired

As a Baby-Friendly designated birthing facility, the Family Birth Center at Foothills Hospital supports mothers who want to breastfeed but also understands when breastfeeding isn’t an option. For families who either choose to not breastfeed or are unable to breastfeed, we teach safe and appropriate methods of preparing, storing and feeding your baby with formula. Download guidelines for feeding your baby formula.

Links to Helpful Breastfeeding Resources

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