- Breastfeeding
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Less than 30% of new mothers in Mauritius are breastfeeding.
That number comes from the Minister of Health. It means that more than seven out of ten babies born on this island are not receiving the milk their mothers’ bodies were built to provide them. And behind that statistic, behind each individual decision to stop, or to never start, is almost always the same story: a mother who wanted to breastfeed, who tried, who encountered something in those first days or weeks that nobody had prepared her for, and who did not have enough support or information to get through it.
The pain that arrived on day three and nobody said was normal. The cluster feeding at six in the evening that felt exactly like starvation but was not. The milk that came in like a flood on day four and then seemed to disappear by week three when the breasts softened, and the family member who said she had dried up. The baby who fed for forty minutes and was hungry again an hour later, and the tin of formula that appeared on the kitchen counter from someone who loved her.
This article is for every one of those mothers. And for every mother currently pregnant who wants to breastfeed and wants to know what the first six weeks actually involve, before she is in the middle of them, running on four hours of sleep, with no one around who can tell her what is normal.
Because most of what stops breastfeeding in Mauritius is not biology. It is the absence of information at the exact moment it is most needed.
Before the milk comes: the first substance your body makes
In the first 2 – 4 days after your baby is born, your breasts do not produce milk. They produce something far more concentrated, far more targeted, and far more valuable.
Colostrum is the thick, sticky, golden-yellow substance that your breasts begin producing from around the second trimester of pregnancy. It is present and ready before your baby is even born. And when baby arrives, when baby latches in those first hours after birth and draws out that first feed, what baby receives is not a large volume of liquid but a small, perfect, concentrated delivery of exactly what a newborn body needs.
The volume is tiny, a few millilitres per feed in the first twenty-four hours. Many mothers look at the drops on a spoon and feel a lurch of fear. Surely this is not enough. Surely baby needs more than this.
Baby does not. Your newborn’s stomach on day one is the size of a marble. A few millilitres fills it. A feed of more than that would simply come back up, because a marble-sized stomach cannot hold more. Colostrum is not a precursor to your real milk. It is exactly the right milk for exactly the right moment, concentrated enough to provide significant immune protection in tiny quantities, with a laxative effect that helps clear the black meconium from their gut, and a composition calibrated precisely for the first days of life outside the womb. And yes, your baby’s poop is not solid from the start. And to those inlaws who state that breastmilk gives diarrhea to your baby, hello!
The problem is that nobody tells mothers this before they give birth. And so those first days, when the baby is feeding frequently and the volumes are small and visible, become a crisis of confidence that should never have happened. You have enough. The colostrum is enough. Your marble-sized newborn does not need the contents of a bottle.
When your milk comes in and what nobody warns you about
Between Day 2 and Day 5 after birth, sometimes later for mothers who had a caesarean, significant blood loss, or certain medical conditions, your mature milk arrives. In Mauritius, where mothers are often in the hospital or clinic for only forty-eight hours before going home, this transition frequently happens at home, without a midwife present.
When it happens, you will know. Your breasts become noticeably fuller, heavier, harder, and sometimes startlingly warm. They may leak. The baby, who had been managing the small colostrum feeds, suddenly has a different situation to navigate, a faster flow, more volume, a breast that is firmer and harder to latch onto than it was yesterday. Some babies pull back. Some splutter. Some seem to inhale it and immediately become the most content person in the room.
Engorgement, the hardness and discomfort of the milk coming in, is temporary. It eases within 24 to 48 hours as your supply begins calibrating to what your baby is actually taking. Feed frequently. Apply a warm cloth before feeds to encourage letdown. Apply a cold cloth after to reduce swelling. Express a small amount by hand if the breast is too hard for your baby to latch, not to empty it, just to soften the areola enough for their mouth to attach.
The most important thing to know about engorgement: it is not your permanent supply. A breast that feels rock hard on Day 4 and softer by Day 7 has not lost its milk. It has begun regulating. The engorgement was the initial oversupply response. The softer breast is the efficient, calibrated supply. This is good. This is what you are working toward.
Cluster feeding: the thing that stops more breastfeeding journeys than anything else
At some point in the first two weeks, often in the evenings, often beginning around day 3 or 4, your baby will feed. And feed. And feed again. Baby will feed for forty minutes, seem settled, and be awake and rooting forty minutes later. Baby will do this for three hours. Four hours. Baby will feed so continuously that you will not be able to put them down, and you will look at your breasts and think they are empty, and you will conclude that you do not have enough milk.
This is cluster feeding and it is the single most common reason breastfeeding ends earlier than a mother intended in Mauritius.
Here is what is actually happening. Your baby is not starving. Baby is stimulating. Cluster feeding is a biological demand signal with your baby feeding more frequently and more intensively to communicate to your supply system that they need more milk, because they are about to grow. It is the mechanism by which breastfed babies regulate supply increases ahead of growth spurts. It works exactly as it is designed to work. And it looks, from the outside, exactly like a baby who is not getting enough.
The formula bottle offered during cluster feeding works as the baby fills up and stops fussing and so the mother concludes that her milk was insufficient. What she does not know is that she has just reduced her supply signal at precisely the moment it needed to build. The next cluster feed will be longer. The next supplementation will be larger. And within a week or two, the breastfeeding has ended, not because her body could not produce enough milk, but because she was never told that what she was seeing was her supply system working correctly.
If you take only one thing from this article: cluster feeding is normal. It does not mean you have no milk. It means your baby is doing their job and your body is listening.
Sore nipples: the pain that is normal and the pain that is not
Some nipple tenderness in the first days of breastfeeding is normal. The skin is adapting to a use it has never experienced before. A mild, manageable sensitivity in the first ten seconds of each latch, easing as the feed progresses, this is within the range of normal and typically resolves within a week or two as your skin toughens.
What is not normal and what too many Mauritius mothers are told to simply push through is persistent, intense pain throughout the entire feed. Cracked nipples that bleed. Nipples that emerge from your baby’s mouth compressed into a lipstick shape. A burning, shooting pain that continues after the feed ends.
This is not the price of breastfeeding. This is information. It is almost always telling you that something about the latch needs to change.
Une shallow latch, where your baby takes mostly the nipple rather than a large mouthful of breast tissue including the areola, is the cause of the vast majority of breastfeeding pain. It also means your baby is not transferring milk efficiently, because the compression of the milk ducts that drives milk transfer requires a deep, full latch on the breast tissue, not the nipple. A shallow latch simultaneously hurts you and starves baby. Fixing it resolves both problems.
Fixing a latch is not something an article can do. It requires someone watching a feed in real time and making specific, hands-on adjustments. This is what a lactation consultant does. One home visit, one hour, one feed observed, one set of specific corrections, is often the difference between stopping breastfeeding at two weeks and breastfeeding for a year.
In the meantime: pure lanolin cream applied after every feed protects and heals cracked skin. Air dry between feeds where possible. Avoid soap on the nipple area. If you are in significant pain, contact a lactation consultant before you make any decisions about stopping.
How to know your baby is getting enough: the real signs
The most frequent question a breastfeeding mother asks in the first six weeks is also the hardest one to answer, because breastfeeding gives you no bottle to measure. You cannot see what your baby took. You cannot compare it to a chart on the tin. And the people around you, family members who formula-fed, grandparents who remember a different era, well-meaning visitors, may not be able to reassure you either, because the reassurance they offer is based on what a bottle looks like, not what a breastfed baby looks like.
Here are the real signs. Not the ones that feel like signs but are not.
Wet nappies are your most reliable daily indicator. After the first week, your baby should have at least six wet, heavy nappies in every 24hours. Heavy, not just a trace of dampness, but genuinely wet. If you are seeing six or more heavy wet nappies a day from day five onwards, your baby is receiving adequate fluid. This is the clearest signal your body gives you, and it is available every day without a scale or a clinic appointment.
Stool transition tells you colostrum is working. Meconium (the black, tarry first stool) should give way to greenish-brown transitional stool by day three, and to the soft, yellow, seedy stool of a breastfed baby by D5. If you are seeing the yellow stool, the milk is in and being digested.
Weight tells you supply is adequate over time. Your baby will lose some weight in the first few days (up to 7-10% of birth weight is within the normal range) and should regain it by D10 – D14. At your paediatric checks, steady gain on the growth chart is the most meaningful indicator of adequate milk intake. One lower-than-expected weight reading is less significant than the trend across multiple measurements.
Audible swallowing during feeds is another reliable sign. After the initial burst of rapid suckling that triggers letdown, the pace slows and you will hear a soft, rhythmic gulp with each suck. That sound is milk being transferred.
And then there is the qualitative sign that is harder to articulate but completely real: a baby who feeds, comes off the breast voluntarily with relaxed open hands and a floppy, milk-drunk quality, and settles for at least a period between feeds. Not every feed ends in deep sleep. But the satiated quality, the absence of continued frantic rooting, the release of the tension in the jaw and fists, is visible once you know to look for it.
The myth that is ending breastfeeding journeys in Mauritius
My breasts feel soft. I must have no milk.
This is the most common breastfeeding misconception in Mauritius and globally, and it is ending breastfeeding journeys that should not end.
In the first days after birth, breasts are engorged and hard because the initial milk supply response is larger than your baby’s needs. They feel full because they are producing more than is being taken. Over the first four to eight weeks, supply regulates to match demand, the oversupply corrects itself, the engorgement resolves, and the breasts settle into an efficient, calibrated supply that feels dramatically softer.
This is not your milk disappearing. This is your supply system doing exactly what it is supposed to do. A softer breast from week four onwards is a sign of mature, well-established breastfeeding, not a sign of failure.
The feeling of fullness is the supply response, not the supply itself. Breasts that never feel full can produce abundant milk. Breasts that feel completely empty moments before a feed can produce a full feed. The sensation in your breast is not a reliable indicator of what is available to your baby, and making decisions based on it leads directly to unnecessary supplementation, reduced demand signal, and the gradual ending of breastfeeding that was working.
Growth spurts: the temporary chaos that feels permanent
At approximately two to three weeks, six weeks, and three months, your breastfed baby will go through a growth spurt. You will know because baby will feed as though they have forgotten every feed that came before. Constantly, urgently, seemingly never satisfied, for two to four days.
This is not a supply crisis. This is your baby’s demand signal increasing ahead of a period of rapid growth, and your supply responding to that signal by increasing. The temporary increase in feeding frequency is the mechanism. If you give it two to four days without supplementing, your supply will have increased to match and the feeding will settle.
If you supplement during a growth spurt, as many Mauritius mothers do, because the growth spurt at two to three weeks coincides exactly with the period when family advice tends to arrive most forcefully, the demand signal is interrupted and the supply increase does not happen. The next growth spurt requires more supplementation. And gradually, across the first six weeks, the breastfeeding share reduces until it has ended without any single dramatic decision being made.
What breastfeeding after a C-section looks like
Mauritius has a high caesarean section rate and many Mauritius mothers worry that their surgical birth has compromised their ability to breastfeed. It has not. Breastfeeding after a C-section is entirely possible and successfully practised by many thousands of mothers globally every day. Take my situation for example, I had an emergency c-section and managed to breastfeed until 12months (and still is).
What may be different: the milk coming in may take slightly longer (up to day five or six rather than day two to four) because the hormonal signals triggered by labour and vaginal birth are partially replaced by the signals triggered by suckling. Early, frequent feeding is the most important thing you can do in the first days after a C-section to compensate for this, every feed is a hormonal signal, and the more frequent the signals, the more efficiently supply establishes. If your goal is to breastfeed, exclusively, then keep your baby in the room with you as from birth, instead of being catered for in the nursery.
The other challenge is physical. A fresh abdominal wound makes certain feeding positions uncomfortable or impossible. The football hold (tucking your baby under your arm rather than across your body) takes pressure off the incision. The side-lying position is comfortable for both night feeds and daytime rests. Ask your midwife or lactation consultant to show you positions that work around your wound rather than assuming the only option is the cross-cradle hold you saw in one diagram.
Breastfeeding support in Mauritius: What exists and where to find it
The 30% statistic does not exist because Mauritius mothers do not want to breastfeed. It exists because the support that makes breastfeeding successful, knowledgeable, accessible, timely, hands-on support, is not reliably available at the moment it is most needed.
Moringa (bred mouroum) is the nutritional support for breastfeeding that has existed in Mauritius for generations. Rich in iron, calcium, vitamin A, and protein, it provides the nutritional foundations that breastfeeding depletes. It is not a supply booster in the pharmaceutical sense, but it is genuine nutritional support from the plant that has nourished Indian Ocean mothers through exactly this stage for centuries. Our organic moringa infusion is available in the nutura shop.
Une lactation consultant is the professional who changes outcomes. One home visit, early enough, ideally in the first week, assesses your latch, watches a full feed, weighs your baby before and after to measure actual milk transfer, and gives you specific, practical, personalised information that no article can provide. This is not a luxury. It is the intervention that, in the first two weeks, makes the difference between a breastfeeding journey that continues and one that does not.
The thing nobody says loudly enough
Your body is not broken. Your milk is not insufficient. The system has failed you by not providing the information and support that makes breastfeeding successful but your biology is intact.
The first six weeks of breastfeeding are not a measure of your capability. They are a learning curve that every mother navigates, some with support, some without. The ones who make it to six months and beyond are not the ones with more milk or more determination. They are the ones who happened to have the right information at the right moment, or a lactation consultant who showed up on day five, or an article they found at 2am that told them cluster feeding was normal.
This is that article.
One feed at a time. You can do this.
FAQ GROSSESSE
How often should a newborn breastfeed?
Between eight and twelve times in every twenty-four hours and sometimes more during cluster feeding periods and growth spurts. This is normal newborn feeding behaviour and does not indicate insufficient milk. A baby who is feeding this frequently is doing their job of stimulating supply. Follow their hunger cues rather than the clock.
Is cluster feeding a sign of low milk supply?
Almost never. Cluster feeding is a demand signal, your baby feeding intensively to stimulate a supply increase ahead of a growth spurt. Offering formula during cluster feeding reduces that demand signal at the moment it needs to build. Give cluster feeding two to four days without supplementation before drawing any conclusions about supply.
When does breast milk come in after birth?
Between day two and day five for most mothers. Slightly later for mothers who had a C-section. The colostrum produced before the mature milk arrives is sufficient for your newborn’s marble-sized stomach and is not a sign of insufficient supply.
My breasts feel soft, does that mean my milk has dried up?
No. Breast softness from around week four onwards is a sign of supply regulation as your body has calibrated production to match your baby’s intake and the initial engorgement has resolved. This is exactly what is supposed to happen. Soft breasts do not mean low supply.
How do I know if my baby is getting enough breast milk?
Six or more heavy wet nappies per day from day five. Soft yellow seedy stools. Birth weight regained by days ten to fourteen. Audible swallowing during feeds. Steady weight gain at paediatric checks. A baby who comes off the breast voluntarily with relaxed hands and a settled quality after feeds. These are your reliable indicators, not breast fullness, not how long feeds last, not how soon baby is hungry again.
Can I breastfeed after a C-section?
Yes, absolutely. Supply may take slightly longer to establish and certain feeding positions are more comfortable around the incision, but breastfeeding after a C-section is entirely possible. Early, frequent feeding and early lactation consultant support make the most significant difference.
References: World Health Organisation — Breastfeeding. who.int. UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative — Breastfeeding in the first days. unicef.org.uk. Ministry of Health and Wellness Mauritius — Infant and young child feeding statistics 2026. La Leche League International — Cluster feeding and growth spurts. llli.org. Victora C.G. et al. — Breastfeeding in the 21st century. The Lancet (2016). Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine — Clinical protocols. bfmed.org.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. For personalised breastfeeding support, contact a qualified lactation consultant. In Mauritius, your clinic’s maternity department or a private LC through the nutura.org directory is your first port of call.