Travel Packing Tips

Traveling is not a good excuse stopping breastfeeding. With good planning and packing, you can still keep the breastfeeding routine.

Prior to departure, talk to your health-care providers as they can help breastfeeding mothers find out about available breastfeeding support at the destination.

Depending on your destination, you should try to avoid immunizations and medications. However, if you visit some countries in the world that requires immunizations, you should talk to your health provider to make sure they’re compatible with breastfeeding.

A mother traveling with her nursing infant less than six months of age need not make provisions to supplement breastfeeding, even when traveling internationally. Breastfed infants do not require water supplementation, even in extreme heat environments. And, when accompanying their mothers, nursing infants and children may feed on demand. The most effective way to maintain a mother’s milk supply while traveling is to engage in frequent and unrestricted nursing opportunities. This is also the best way to meet the physical and emotional needs of the infant or child.

The traveling mother may find it helpful to take along a sling or other soft infant carrier, which may be used to

• Ease the burden of carrying a child for extended periods of time
• Increase opportunities for unrestricted nursing, effective in maintaining an abundant milk supply
• Maintain skin-to-skin contact with the child, which helps in maintaining a milk supply
• Protect the child from some environmental hazards

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention