I’m excited to say that as of writing this I have been breastfeeding my son for 14 months!
I’m grateful that my breastfeeding journey is going strong because it got off to a rough start.
I didn’t know that “flat nipples” were a thing but it turns out they are and I have them.
This made it difficult for Massimo to latch on properly and I had to use a nipple shield to help him be able to do so.
Thankfully, we only used the nipple shield for a few days until he developed a better latch and the rest has been a breeze besides the odd clogged milk duct!
At the beginning of my breastfeeding journey I would pump extra milk and started a little freezer stash thinking I might need it in the future if I were to leave my son with his dad.
Well, it turns out I never needed it because my son absolutely would NOT take a bottle. We tried different bottles, different nipple flows and different milk temperatures but nothing worked.
He just wasn’t a bottle guy, which in hindsight I should have expected because he wasn’t a pacifier guy either.
So there I was with a bunch of breast milk in my freezer and a phone in my hand, googling what to do with all of it.
Thankfully, I found out that bathing your baby in breast milk is a thing and that it’s very beneficial for their skin!
In this article I have included 5 benefits of a breast milk bath for your baby and how to do it.
Benefits Of Breast Milk Baths
1. Treats Skin Ailments
Bathing your baby in breast milk helps to treat skin ailments such as psoriasis, eczema and cradle cap.
Studies have shown that breast milk is just as effective as using 1% hydrocortisone cream when treating eczema!
2. Hydrates Dry Skin.
Breast milk contains vaccenic acid, linoleic acid, palmitic acid, and oleic acid. These acids are all very hydrating and will soothe and prevent dry, chapped skin.
3. Helps Heal Skin
The antibodies that are present in breast milk fight bacteria and infections and help to heal minor burns, cuts and insect bites.
These same antibodies help to soothe and heal diaper rash and skin irritations.
4. Fights Baby Acne
Breast milk contains lauric acid which has anti-bacterial and acne-fighting properties.
5. Nourishes Skin Microbiome
Breast milk not only nourishes the gut microbiome, but the skin microbiome as well.
The skin’s microbiome works the same way as our gut microbiome. They protect against infection by crowding out overgrowth of pathogenic organisms.
How To Prepare A Milk Bath
Run a bath for your baby as normal, and then add anywhere from 1-8 oz of breast milk depending on how big your bath is. You want enough milk to make the water cloudy.
You can bathe your baby in a milk bath as often as you’d like! I bathed my son in milk weekly for 8 or 9 months to really nourish his skin microbiome.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a stash of pumped milk or hate pumpking- you can use a haakaa to collect milk from your other breast while you’re nursing your baby. If you don’t know what a haakaa is check it out online. It makes it so easy to collect breast milk!
Have you ever tried a breast milk bath for your baby? Let me know in the comments!
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