How to Make Breastfeeding Easier When Your Baby is Congested

How to Make Breastfeeding Easier When Your Baby is Congested

Bringing a new baby into the world is one of the most joyful things that a human being can experience, but it also brings quite a bit of worry along the way. As much as we wish and hope that the hospital will send us home with a magic manual, providing the roadmap to know how to handle every situation thrown our way, it just doesn’t exist. Choosing to breastfeed is one of those learning curves that you master as your go, but if we can make one thing a little easier for you (praise hands!), we are going to do it!


Seeing your little one sick or in any type of distress is gut-wrenching as a parent, so we’re going to help you navigate breastfeeding while your baby is congested or sick.


How to Make Breastfeeding Easier When Your Baby is Congested

First things first: many parents don’t know this, but most babies cannot breathe through their mouths for up to one year. It’s true! Most babies are nose breathers almost exclusively. Dr. Steven Goudy, Pediatric ENT and founder of Dr. Noze Best says, “At birth, the orientation of the voice box or larynx with the soft palate or uvula are interdigitated. That means that they are arranged in a way in which babies can breathe and eat at the same time. As your baby grows, the voice box or larynx descends and simultaneous eating and breathing become less frequent.” 

Knowing that tidbit of information, can you imagine trying to breastfeed with a congested nose? It’s almost impossible. As you might imagine, if babies can't breathe then they can't eat.  

In addition, congestion can happen often. It can be associated with everyday occurrences like teething or allergies and doesn’t always mean that a baby is sick. Either way, that congestion needs to be cleared so that your little one can eat peacefully and fill their belly. 


How do you easily clear everyday congestion?

This is where the NozeBot comes in handy! It is a battery-powered nasal aspirator (a suction device to clear nasal congestion in babies and children.) Having the NozeBot in your home and ready to use before your little one is ever congested is a great way for parents to be prepared. There will be many moments when you know your baby is hungry and ready to breastfeed but unable to eat because their nose is congested. 

The device offers three levels of instant hospital-grade suction. Translation: No more gross mouth suction, spreading illness, and wrestling with your child to help clear their congestion and runny noses. We call that winning!

Dr. Steven Goudy created the unique nosepiece that occupies two fingers only, leaving the other fingers free to stabilize your child's head when they are tossing like a baby alligator. It gives you a hand back so nasal suctioning is no longer a two-person job!

To use, you simply have the device charged and ready to go, turn on to the level of suction that your baby needs at that moment, and insert the nosepiece into their nostril (don’t worry, it’s designed to avoid over-insertion!). You will be surprised how much mucus the NozeBot will relieve your baby of so their nasal passages are clear and they can breastfeed with ease. 

Bonus: toss it in the top rack of your dishwasher to clean! 

Dr. Noze Best is a pediatric wellness company founded by Dr. Steve Goudy, a pediatric ENT. Our hero product, the NozeBot, is a baby nasal aspirator with hospital-grade suction that clears your baby’s congestion in seconds - no manual sucking snot required!
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