Many factors in breastfeeding can have a positive or negative effect on your mental health. If you're a new parent, you're likely experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions. From hormonal changes to sleep deprivation to feeding choices for your baby, your life — and emotions — may seem to be all over the place.
Breastfeeding also provides a psychoneuroimmunological benefit to mothers that reduces anxiety, which is likely associated with the hormone prolactin [2]. Other studies have discovered that breastfeeding directly decreases the symptoms of depression and that early cessation of breastfeeding eliminates this benefit [3].
Scientists now tell us that infants learn best in a context of emotional closeness with an adult. Breastfeeding promotes a growing attachment between the two of you that will continue to play an important role in your baby's development for years to come.
CONCLUSIONS. Breastfed children for at least three to four months had fewer total behavior and conduct disorders in childhood. Further studies are needed to better understand this association, particularly in adolescence and involving other behavioral profiles.
Breastfeeding / Nursing Aversion & Agitation (BAA) is a phenomenon whereby breastfeeding / pumping mothers experience negative emotions triggered whilst breastfeeding, these include anger, rage, agitation and irritability. Women also struggle with an 'overwhelming urge to de-latch', and often a skin itching sensation.
Breastfeeding Mothers Feel Calmer
Studies have suggested that lactation gives mothers helpful hormonal releases of oxytocin, which help them to relax and reduce “fight or flight” hormones. Instead of feeling panicked in times of stress, breastfeeding mums are more likely to feel “calm and connected.”
An infant's intestinal tract responds to its mother's milk by sprouting receptors that detect the hormone, activating neurochemical signals that can travel all the way to the brain. These signals may influence a baby's stress response and the development of brain regions that regulate emotions such as fear and anxiety.
Myth: Babies who have been breastfed are clingy.
All babies are different. Some are clingy and some are not, no matter how they are fed. Breastfeeding provides not only the best nutrition for infants, but is also important for their developing brain.
If every feeding is stressful, anxiety-producing, or just plain painful, you have to pause to consider your mental and physical health. Maybe you've developed mastitis more than once or you're experiencing postpartum depression and the thought of continuing to breastfeed is making you miserable.
Breastfeeding may not always be natural and can be a super emotional journey. Starting from the latching on to the milk coming in and continuing the journey can get emotionally exhausting but also very rewarding.
While a baby, toddler, or child is latched on, some mothers suffer from negative feelings or intrusive thoughts. This is a phenomenon called breastfeeding aversion and agitation. It is a rarely discussed topic as many women do not want to talk openly about it or are perhaps afraid to share these feelings.
But they say this crankiness in babies is normal and just their natural way of communicating their needs to their mother and is no cause for alarm. For example, some cries will be down to tiredness not hunger.
During breastfeeding, your baby's tongue pushes up on your nipple, which signals the release of oxytocin. This oxytocin causes your breast tissue to contract and let milk down into the ducts and out the nipple. It's during this letdown that some women experience a severe dip in their mood.
A study conducted by researchers from Cambridge, London and Paris found that formula fed babies seemed to smile more and cry less than breast fed and combination fed babies. The study also showed that formula fed babies settled to sleep more easily.
Studies have shown that infants as young as one month-old sense when a parent is depressed or angry and are affected by the parent's mood. Understanding that even infants are affected by adult emotions can help parents do their best in supporting their child's healthy development.
But children who were breastfed were better equipped to deal with the problem than those who were fed by bottle and were "significantly less anxious". Breastfed children were almost twice as likely to be highly anxious if their parents had divorced or separated compared to those who stayed together.
Everyone experiences post-weaning depression differently. However, common symptoms include feelings of sadness, anxiety, feeling tearful, difficulty concentrating, feelings of loss, and irritability. You may also experience mood swings or lose interest in activities you used to enjoy.
After birth and during lactation, mothers can still transfer physiological signals to the infant through the biological constituents of breast milk (Hinde et al., 2014), including cortisol. Cortisol concentrations are transferred from plasma to breast milk, as there is no mammary synthesis of cortisol (Hamosh, 2001).
Both oxytocin and prolactin contribute to feelings of calm, love, relaxation, closeness and contentment. As breastfeeding ends, both prolactin and oxytocin levels will lower – and so may your mood and sense of wellbeing.
Breastfed babies cry more, laugh less, and generally have "more challenging temperaments" than formula-fed infants, a study has found. But such behaviour is normal, and mothers should learn to cope with it rather than reach for the bottle, according to researchers.
Breast-fed babies are more likely to sleep in shorter bursts, sleep less deeply and take longer to sleep through the night . But they do benefit from the melatonin in your breastmilk, which helps them get to sleep .
Sometimes, your milk lets down so fast that your baby can have trouble swallowing the amount of milk that's being released. Because of this, your baby may act fussy at breast or choke and sputter at the breast, and he or she may be quite gassy.