Nursing Mother's Companion 8th Edition: The Breastfeeding Book Mothers Trust, from Pregnancy Through Weaning

by Kathleen Huggins

Solve breastfeeding challenges quickly and safely with this beloved and reliable guide.

Breastfeeding is natural, but it can be challenging for new moms and their babies. Hospitals and doctors’ offices often do not have the time to respond to the many questions new moms have about nursing their babies—especially when hurdles arise on nights or weekends, as they inevitably do. This book fills the gaps, with accurate advice and a warm and wise tone.

The Nursing Mother’s Companion has been among the top two best-selling books on breastfeeding for more than 30 years, with more than one million copies sold. It is respected and recommended by professionals, including The International Lactation Consultant Association, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, and The American Academy of Pediatrics, and is well loved by new parents for its encouraging and accessible style .

Kathleen Huggins equips breastfeeding mothers with the information they need to overcome potential difficulties and nurse their babies successfully from the first week through whenever they choose to wean. This fully updated and revised 8th edition provides information on topics such
 
Nursing Mother’s Companion comes complete with “Survival Guides” set off by colored bands on the pages for quick reference, as well as appendices on determining baby’s milk needs in the first six weeks, and the safety of various drugs during breastfeeding.

You will also find an insightful foreword by Jessica Martin-Weber, creator of the popular website The Leaky Boob , and a preface by Kelly Bonata, creator of the go-to site KellyMom . These two much-loved authorities speak to the importance of owning an authoritative breastfeeding book that cuts through the jumble of opinions, information, and misinformation on the web.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction

456 pages, Paperback

Published July 12, 2022

About the author

For more than twenty-five years, Kathleen Huggins, R.N., M.S., I.B.C.L.C., has dedicated her medical career to helping mothers care more effectively for their newborn babies. A registered nurse with an M.A. in perinatal care from the University of California at San Francisco, Huggins has spent the past two decades as a perinatal clinical specialist and board-certified lactation consultant at San Luis Obispo General Hospital in California. During this time she co-directed Breastfeeding Warmline, a telephone counseling service for nursing mothers. Huggins has also worked as a college instructor of fetal-newborn development, and has lead seminars on a variety of topics related to perinatal care and breastfeeding.

Huggins is owner of the maternity store Simply Mama. She is the author of several books on breastfeeding and has sold more than one million copies. She lives in California with her husband and youngest child.

Reviews

[Linda Galella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Single minded but extremely thorough, this is the 8th edition of “The Nursing Mother’s Companion”, by Kathleen Huggins. It is highly readable and turns over every stone related to breastfeeding except one. There is no allowance for not providing you children with breast milk and/or the experience of skin to skin nursing in some form, whatever it takes, and Huggins does find a way for all the issues I’ve every heard about. If you are looking for an open minded approach, this book is not for you however, if do or die trying is your modus operandi, congratulations!

Huggins begins the book by discussing preparations prior to giving birth and follows chronologically thru the first year of your baby’s life. She is exhaustive in her inclusions and you should be able to find an answer to any question.

One of the best features of this book are the appendices. There is one for resources and my favorite, one for drugs. This appendix is sorted by classification and advises whether a particular medication is safe for an infant as well as the mother; totally worth the price of the entire book, IMO.

While the entire book has been updated, in this version the biggest change is found in chapter 5 where Huggins reviews 57 different types of breast pumps and lactation extraction devices. For many, she includes drawings of the device, a retail price, (as of publication), her thot’s about the performance, contact information and what situation she does/doesn’t recommend them for. It is a very thorough presentation. She also has a Q&A to help new parents decide what type of device they might want.

All things considered, a complete resource for those who definitely want to breastfeed📚

[Donna Schwartz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a great deal of important information in it about starting to breastfeed and what it is like during the different parts of the first year. It also gives an overview of different ways to wean.
There are quite a few suggestions on how to keep breastfeeding going during the early weeks, right along to how to help a baby slowly wean.
I would say that she gives a balanced view of most debates about how to handle sleep issues, although I honestly feel that she should have given more information on La Leche League and other support systems for mothers. I was surprised that she did not mention attachment parenting and give some resources for mothers, although she does seem to lean in that direction.
This is not, however, a book that most mothers should read from cover to cover. There is a lot of information on on various drugs and the effect on a nursing baby which would not be needed by most mothers. There are also a lot of situations that a nursing mother would not need to learn about. Some parts of the book are overwhelming for that reason. Some of the parts of this book would have scared me to pieces when I was first nursing my 1st child.
The section in the book on pumps is a great asset and has important information on what kind of pump a mother may need and what kind of suction a pump should have and how many cycles per minute are optimum.
I would suggest a mother start out with The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding and then use this book as a backup as needed.

[Jessica Sheets · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative. It feels like my head is spinning from the information in this book. I will keep it on my nightstand after my daughter is born in a couple of months. It was definitely a lot to digest at once.

[Holly LeBeau · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only thing I appreciated was they gave lots of details for all the different kinds of breast pumps. Otherwise, I didn't super agree with most of the information in this book or it just didn't inspire me or rub my the right way.

[Anjana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I normally do not do in-depth reviews of books that expired before I read it all, but given the timing of this book and what I did manage to get through when I had the book, it is one I had to talk about!

This is a book that is mentioned in the introduction as a must have for women who plan to breastfeed either as part or the whole of the regime. I have been feeding almost exclusively for a while since my delivery and have had my ups and downs with regards to the experience. Mostly it’s been positive. There are certain advantages to listening to age old practices with regards to diet, because it definitely helped me make and provide more milk.

This book is for almost everything else. It is a comprehensive book, one that I would recommend women read even before or instead of ‘what to expect..’.

I will not go into the technical details except to say helpful diagrams and scientific facts accompany a lot of the text making it easy to peruse and find what exactly one is looking for.

I would highly recommend circulating this book as and when a woman is pregnant and expresses a desire to feed initially.

I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience and my experience with breastfeeding itself.