Breastfeeding a Baby with Diabetes

Parents often assume a diabetes diagnosis rules out breastfeeding. It does not. The World Health Organization's recommendation — exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, then continuing alongside solids to two years or beyond — applies to your baby too.

There is no reason to switch to formula because of neonatal diabetes. Breastmilk is not the cause of the high blood sugar, and stopping it does not treat the condition.

What does need thought is coordination.

• With insulin, feeds and doses need to be timed together. Your team will tell you which comes first, and it may differ between the background dose and any dose given with feeds.
• You cannot measure how much a baby takes at the breast. This is the genuine practical difficulty, and it is one your team is used to working around — patterns are read from glucose readings rather than from volumes.
• Expressing some feeds gives you a measurable volume when doses are being established, and lets someone else feed the baby overnight.
• If your baby is in hospital and not feeding by mouth yet, start expressing as early as you can to protect your supply.

Feeding on demand is usually workable. Some teams prefer more scheduled feeds while doses are being set, then relax that once things stabilise. Ask which applies to you rather than assuming.

If breastfeeding is not possible — and there are many reasons it might not be — that is not a failure and it does not harm your baby's diabetes control. Formula feeding works perfectly well here.