Breastfeeding is a beautiful and natural bonding experience between a mother and baby. However, for many, it can also bring about pain and discomfort. If you're finding that breastfeeding is becoming a painful chore rather than a joyful experience, chiropractic care might be a surprisingly beneficial option for relief. Dr. Dani is a Denver based pediatric chiropractor and is deeply passionate about providing holistic approaches to relieving breastfeeding pain and discomfort as well as assessing and addressing the underlying causes. While the main focus is typically around what’s happening with baby’s mechanics and improving their ability to function optimally at breast, Dr. Dani also considers the emotional and mental well-being of new moms. Bodywork for both mom and baby can reduce tension and stress, improve both the physical and mental states, and decreases overall discomfort from hours of odd positions, craned necks, and rounded postures that commonly accompany feeding concerns. When it comes to feeding, an uncomfortable baby almost always means an uncomfortable mom.

Main contributors to pain with breastfeeding

When we have pain, discomfort, or dysfunction while feeding, there are three primary musculoskeletal components that should be assessed and addressed:

1. Body Tension - limiting the ability for baby to get into an optimal position or use the muscles needed for feeding in an optimal way. This tension can interfere with baby’s ability to get into ideal positions for feeding (ex. preferring one breast over the other). It may also impact their ability to relax at breast to feed (ex. hand and toes scrunched or looking tight and uncomfortable). Tension throughout the body can even impact how the muscles of the mouth are functioning (ex. tension in the neck, shoulder, torso or even the hips can impact how the structures of the mouth and tongue function).

   • Imagine a time you may have woken up with a kink in your neck. You may have been able to turn to both sides, but it was definitely uncomfortable to turn to one side. Now, imagine that you HAD to turn to that side to eat. Sure, you might be able to do it, but you’re definitely going to modify how you’re doing things a bit and take a while longer to do so.

2. Oral Motor Skills - if baby doesn’t have the strength or the skill to coordinate the structures of the mouth optimally, you’ll commonly see compensation patterns such as recruitment of the jaw, cheeks and neck. In this case, many moms report a REALLY strong suck. There can also be more of a chomping pattern or lack of ability to move the tongue in a manner needed to feed optimally.

   • These kiddos are typically referred to specific providers with additional training and typically include: Occupational Therapists (OT), International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLC), Speech Language Pathologists (SLP)

3. Oral Ties - though everyone has the tissues that connect the tongue to the floor of the mouth and the lips to the gums; tongue ties, lip ties, and cheek ties truly limit function and do not allow for the range of motion needed to feed optimally.

   • This should be assessed by someone with additional training and only if other causes of dysfunction such as body tension AND oral motor skills have been assessed and addressed. This not only ensures that the procedure is necessary, but also improves release outcomes.

Chiropractic care is a full body approach to assessing and correcting tension patterns that may be contributing to oral dysfunction and suboptimal feeding patterns. In-utero positioning and the birth process itself are the most common culprits for tension in babies. Dr. Dani is a Denver based pediatric chiropractor, but primarily utilizes a combination of gentle myofascial release, massage techniques, and craniosacral fascial technique to assess the body as a whole. Chiropractic care is utilized to assess and address body tension patterns. It improves how baby is able to move and allows them to feel more comfortable it their bodies. Chiropractic care can also help with reflux, constipation and gas which are frequently associated with feeding concerns due to less than optimal mechanics which allows for an intake of air during feeds. It also helps to differentiate between body tension as a cause verses oral mechanics. Chiropractic care is a gentle and safe first step to improving feeding and decreasing discomfort.