Breastmilk Counts

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Create Your Plan

Consider working together with your partner to fill out this Breastfeeding Plan (PDF, 174kb). It will help you set your breastfeeding goals and it will help your health care team understand what you need during and after delivery. This plan can be completed with your doctor, your baby's doctor or the hospital staff.

Exclusive Breastfeeding

My goal is to exclusively breastfeed my baby. Please do not give my baby any supplements before speaking to me or my birthing partner. I need all of my baby's suckling to be at my breast in order for me to establish a good milk supply.

No bottles or Pacifiers

Please do not give my baby artificial nipples including pacifiers or any types of bottles filled with formula, water, or glucose water. If there is a medical reason for supplementation, I would first like to speak with a lactation consultant or pediatrician about trying alternate feeding methods with expressed breastmilk.

Skin-to-Skin

When my baby is born, I would like to have him/her placed on my chest, skin-to-skin with me for the first hour. If possible, please perform routine newborn evaluations with my baby on my chest. Throughout our stay, I want to be able to hold my baby skin-to-skin as much as possible. A blanket may be placed over us, but not between us, if extra warmth is necessary.

First Hour

Please help me start breastfeeding within 30-minutes to 1-hour of delivery. This means placing my baby skin-to-skin as soon as possible after birth and offering to help to begin breastfeeding when my baby seems ready (e.g. rooting, licking lips, etc.). Please do not force my baby to take the breast if he/she is not showing signs of readiness. Instead, keep my baby skin-to-skin with me until he/she is ready to try to latch.

Routine Exams

Please examine my baby in my presence and do not take him/her away from me unless he/she requires medical treatment that cannot be done in my room.

Emergency Cesarean

If I have a cesarean, I would like to hold my baby skin-to-skin as soon as possible after the operation. If I am unable to for some time after the delivery, then please allow my partner to hold my baby skin-to-skin.

Rooming In

I would like to room in with my baby 24 hours a day to give my baby plenty of skin-to-skin time and so I can learn my baby's feeding cues and feed him at his first sign of hunger. If for some reason my baby and I are not in the same room, please bring him/her to me at the earliest hunger cues, such as sucking on hands, making sucking noises or rooting.

Breastfeeding Assistance

Please teach me how to get a good latch and how to correct my baby's positioning and latch if it is needed. Please teach me how to know my baby's early hunger cues and how to tell if my baby is breastfeeding well.

Breast Pumps

If my baby is unable to breastfeed or is separated from me due to medical reasons, I want to be able to use a breast pump within 6 hours of delivery. If you think I am going to need a pump longer than my hospital stay or if there is not a double electric breast pump available, please remind me to call my WIC office or health care plan for a pump.

Discharge Bags

Please do not give me a free gift bag containing formula or show me any promotional or marketing materials concerning artificial baby milk.

Breastfeeding Support After Discharge

I would like to receive contact information for breastfeeding support in case I need help with breastfeeding after my baby and I are at home. Remind me to make appointments to follow up with WIC and my baby's doctor before I leave the hospital.

Expert Tip

“Breastfeeding shouldn’t hurt, but if you have any nipple pain there are many tips to help, such as adjusting your baby’s latch.”

Shea, WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor

Pack this plan!

Don't forget to take your Breastfeeding Plan to the hospital. Ask the staff to attach your plan to your chart while you're still in labor so they will be aware of what you want. The plan will make sure that all the members of your medical team are up to speed about your preferences.

Download a Breastfeeding Plan

My Breastfeeding Plan