THE PERFECT LATCH

The majority of nipple pain that people experience during breastfeeding is caused by an incorrect latch. If you can get the baby to attach to the breast well, your feeding problems may disappear. We find that when babies are attached correctly milk supply increases, pain decreases, babies are more settled and sleep longer, meaning you'll have bigger gaps between feeds. Which makes sense because everything is working more efficiently. So how do we improve the latch? When we look at the latch, we find it helpful to teach a key acronym that will help you to remember the main principles of achieving the perfect latch. The acronym is CHIN.

We use CHIN to remind us that a baby's chin should be elevated when they come to the breast. If my chin is all the way down on my chest, then my forehead is the leading point as I come to the breast. This will often lead to painful latching, because the nipple is pointed to the hard bony part of the baby's mouth. The forehead first position also buries the baby’s nose in the breast so that they can’t breath. If you have ever had to use a finger to create a channel so your baby’s nose is clear to breast then you may be forehead feeding.

BUT....

When we bring the baby to the breast chin up, the baby’s nose will be free and clear allowing them to breathe easily, the nipple will point at the roof of the mouth and is much easier to get to the soft palate where the nipple is cushioned and comfortable throughout the feed. Feel this in your own mouth with your tongue. Reach up to where the hard palate and soft palate meet. Right at that border is where your nipple should be when breastfeeding. All the way back there! Aren’t our bodies amazing?!

Now let's break CHIN down into it’s four components to get the right latch

C for Close

If we're going to get the nipple all the way back to the sweet spot, we need no space between you and baby. I want them in contact with you all the way from their chin to their toes. Have them wrapped around you like you're wearing a little baby belt. Don't let baby cross their arms in front of themselves because it will get between you and that's adding an extra inch or so away from the breast. That’s also going to pull the nipple down and cause a shallow latch.

H for Head

The head needs to be free to be able to tilt into that chin-first position. If we put our hand on the back of baby's head, we often push them into the forehead position inadvertently. Instead, I want you to make a C shape with your hand and hold the baby at the base or nape of the neck. I promise you'll still be able to give good head support for their weak neck muscles, and you'll be able to support them in such a way that the head is free to tilt back as the baby approaches the breast.

I for In-line

We want baby tummy to tummy. Looking directly at the breast, not twisted. If we let those little hips flop out that will twist the body and pull the baby off the breast into a shallow latch. If it's helpful, look down at your baby while they're feeding and look for landmarks. We should see the ear, shoulder and hip all in line with each other and not twisted.

N for Nose to Nipple

A common mistake we see is aiming the nipple directly to the mouth. We call this bull's eye feeding. When the nipple is aimed at the mouth, the baby rolls into forehead position again, causing a painful latch. Instead, if we line our nose up with the nipple, the baby will then have to reach up to get to it, which will automatically put them into that chin first position.

The beauty of the CHIN approach is it works for every position. You can apply this to cross cradle, football hold, laid back positioning or side lying, and it will work for all of them.

A BAD LATCH

A shallow latch, where the tongue does not have good contact with the areola, leads to pain and poor milk flow.

A few other key principles when latching is you need lots of support and lots of pillows. You can achieve this with pillows off of your couch or you can go out and buy the most expensive breastfeeding pillows on the market. They all do the same thing which is to support baby and to align them in the correct positions to take the pressure off of your hands, back and shoulders. We often find these wrap-around pillows are really useful, but find the one that works best for you.

Here is a great support pillow you can find on Amazon!