The major purposes of postpartum and postnatal care are to maintain and promote the health of the woman and her baby and to foster an environment that offers help and support to the extended family and community for a wide range of related health and social needs.
Maternity support belts are effective in pain alleviation. It helps improves balance, functionality and mobility of pregnant women. It significantly decreases mobility of the sacroiliac joints.
Lactation management aims at individual care and solutions as per the problem faced, leading to successful breast feeding. Painful nipples is a very common breastfeeding issue. Main reason for this is poor infant positioning or latch.
Nursing pillows can be of help to position the baby comfortably. They help the baby latch to the nipple more easily especially in premature infants.
Nipple shields can also be used as these can maintain breastfeeding, along with providing the mother a sense of accomplishment. Nipple shields are breastfeeding aids recommended to mothers with flat nipples or in cases in which there is a failure of the baby to effectively latch onto the breast within the first 2 days postpartum. This is positioned over the nipple and areola prior to nursing.
There are several glycerine gel dressings, breast shells with lanolin and creams to help the mother treat sore nipples. Lanolin is a yellow fat obtained from sheep’s wool.
Breast pads avoids leakage,keeps breast markedly drier and avoids infection in case of cracks. The importance of the mother and the baby position during the breastfeeding has to be insisted to avoid sore nipples.
Expressed breast milk may be equally or more beneficial in the short-term experience of nipple pain. Breast pumps helps maintain lactation particularly when the infant is not able to breastfeed. Using breast pumps facilitates quality time with the baby. 80% of mothers express milk at some point during the first 4 months postpartum.To optimise breastmilk supply and prevent injury a proper breast pump fit is needed. To stimulate milk secretion a gentle suckling action by the pump is needed to stimulate the mammary glands.
Cureka has a endless list of pregnancy and post pregnancy products to help the mother achieve her goals.