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December 31, 2017 at 09:35AM
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SINGAPORE: “Eat, breastfeed, repeat” – that’s the tagline for a shop that opened last month in the heartlands specialising in bakes for the new mum.
Ms Joanna Goy, 31, is among a growing number of home bakers who have taken to offering cookies, muffins and brownies that purportedly help lactating mothers produce more milk.
The response has been so good since Ms Goy started her online business, Singapore Lactation Bakes (SLB), in 2015 that she and her husband quit their banking jobs to establish a brick-and-mortar presence at The Promenade at Pelikat mall in Kovan.
“We started out getting about 30 orders a month. Now we get up to 500,” said the mother of three. “When the demand started increasing, we moved operations to a shared kitchen, but even that wasn’t enough so we decided to set up a proper shop.”
An assistant preparing labels at the Singapore Lactation Bakes kitchen. (Photo: Hidayah Salamat)
Currently, the SLB store is a simple kitchen where the couple, together with an assistant, prepare cookies and muffins in flavours like butterscotch and oats, strawberry cream cheese and even Maltesers, which customers can collect over the counter. In time, Ms Goy, who is training to become a lactation counsellor, hopes to turn it into a space where her mummies clientele can interact with experts and each other.
“We only had door-to-door delivery, but with a physical shop, customers can collect their own orders and grab other products as well. We’ll also be providing takeaway drinks such as lactation lemon tea and chocolate, which are not available in the market yet,” said Ms Goy.
Ms Farhana Noor Mohamed is another home baker who has seen her business growing rapidly. The 32-year-old said she “needed a boost” after discovering she had a bun in the oven while still nursing her firstborn.
“I tried a variety of methods. I incorporated foods like salmon, soya bean and ajwa dates into my diet, and ate store-bought lactation cookies,” she said. “Some worked, some didn’t, some just didn’t taste good.
“Those that worked, I had to keep eating to maintain the boost. It got too expensive, especially for a stay-at-home mum, so I decided to bake my own cookies.”
On top of selling 100 packs of lactation cookies a month, Ms Marian Wong also offers muffins in flavours like oatmeal and raisin, and strawberry jam swirl. (Photo: Facebook/Marian’s Bakes)
Three years on, demand for Ms Farhana’s brand M3 Milk Making Mummy, has grown so much she has had to limit her orders to 40 bags a week to keep it manageable. She has also started hiring part-time riders, mostly students, to do deliveries. From just two flavours – ajwa and basic oats – M3 now offers six and also takes custom orders including those with no sugar for mothers who suffer from gestational diabetes.
“Ajwa chocolate chip and cranberry are my bestsellers,” Ms Farhana revealed. “I make S$600 a month just from those flavours.”
For some, the specialty bakes have been so popular they’ve outshone their regular cakes.
Ms Marian Wong, a 31-year-old business manager and founder of Marian’s Bakes, was only baking for friends when they started requesting for lactation cookies in 2015.
“The cookies worked for my friends, who then shared it with their friends. As time goes on, enquiries about my lactation goodies grew bigger than those about my other bakes,” she said.
Ms Wong has gone from selling just a pack a month to around 100 packs, and now offers muffins – her top-selling item. She changes the menu as often as twice monthly to keep things exciting for regulars, whom she said order from her “even when they don’t need the boost”.
On top of muffins like caramelised banana butterscotch and strawberry jam swirl, Ms Wong also offers, on occasion and for a limited time, items like Thai tea muffins and butterscotch drizzle blondies.
Ms Siska Rini didn’t start out with lactation cookies either. Super Shaq Cookies were named after her seven-year-old son, whom she was trying to get to eat healthy.
“You can never go wrong with chocolate chip cookies when it comes to children. To get him excited about eating healthy, we would bake together and add ingredients like almonds and flaxseed to the batter,” said the 36-year-old, who quit her training executive job in Doha to be home with her family and was on a look-out for home-based work.
“I realised these ingredients were milk boosters after friends who ate my cookies reported producing more milk,” she said. “It was a happy coincidence!”
THE PROOF IS IN THE COOKIE
Do they really work? Yes, going by testimonials left behind by customers on the bakers’ social media pages. It’s also become a custom for mothers to Whatsapp photos of their pumping efforts to the sellers.
“I find it very satisfying to receive messages from mummies who achieve results, especially those who had tried ‘everything’ and were sceptical. Some even send me photos of the inside of their fridge, well-stocked with milk!” said Ms Wong.
Ms Kang Phaik Gaik, senior lactation consultant at Mount Alvernia Hospital, said the efficacy of the cookies lies in the galactogogues (substances containing nutrients that support and promote breast milk production) they contain.
“As lactation consultants, we don’t recommend specific products to our clients – we correct their latching technique. But I do have clients tell me they have seen increased milk supply after eating lactation cookies, and I just say okay, as long as it’s hygienic.”
“Ingredients matter,” said Ms Kang. “These cookies are made with known milk boosters like brewer’s yeast. Oats and herbs like fenugreek also help.”
Some home bakers provide their customers with learning material to help them get the most of the products. New SLB customers get digital pamphlets with information like how many to eat and what to expect.
“Some mummies react faster to the herbs, others slower. I’m a slow and low yielder so I eat more, but there are some mummies who need to eat less and that’s okay.
“Like the tagline, I encourage mummies to eat, pump and repeat often so as to stimulate their brain to make more milk. The effect takes several days to show,” said Ms Goy.
New mothers told Channel NewsAsia that homemade bakes sold online fulfil all the requirements of an anxious modern mum.
“I choose to buy from home bakers because their products are freshly baked, have no additives and contain natural and organic ingredients,” said Ms Nurwahidah Nordin.
She said that while her milk boosters of choice are dates and organic oats first, cookies are a good secondary option.
“They’re best for when I’m on the go, at work or snacking while watching Netflix,” she said, adding that she buys them from Instagram sellers like Mamalait and Super Shaq Cookies.
“Results vary,” said Ms Nurwahidah. “Sometimes, I’ll get a boost within a few hours of eating the cookies, but most of the time I only see a difference a day after. My milk supply increases by 50ml to 70ml each time, which I consider just moderate. I know some mums who see more extreme results.”
Admin executive Zam said she worried at first about how lactation cookies, which are usually made with olive oil, not butter, would taste.
“I bought a packet of dark chocolate and raspberry cookies from Mamalait and they were so tasty I ate three at one go,” she said. “Now that I know I like the taste, I’m definitely buying more.”
Like Ms Nurwahidah, Ms Zam noticed a difference in her milk supply after eating the cookies regularly – about 15ml to 20ml each time. She also said she prefers Instagram sellers because they are prompt to respond to queries and can accommodate requests for reduced sugar due to her history with gestational diabetes.
“Of course, the convenience of shopping from home tops it all,” she said.
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Well, I’m back from my mini hiatus! Let me tell you, mama – a Cesarean section is no joke! Honestly, I used to think that giving birth via CS was an easy way out. That’s mostly because I birthed my first child normally. But boy, was I mistaken. The entire experience has given me a whole new outlook on the process and I’ve gained so much more respect for mamas who’ve given birth through CS. So, I give one giant hug to all those mamas who have had to go through the pain and struggle of Cesarean birth – you’re all rockstars!
Now, while I would love to go into detail regarding my birthing experience (which I might get to after a blog post or two), I actually want to talk about something that’s a little more pertinent to my mama life right now. That is – breastfeeding.
I know, for lots of mamas, breastfeeding is one of the biggest hurdles of post partum life. Making sure your baby gets enough, having the time to direct feed or pump, and keeping your supply stable, or if possible, increasing it all together are no simple feats! And that’s something I’ve had to learn the hard way with this second pregnancy.
After having formula fed my first baby, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t do the same with my next child. So here I am. Trying to desperately figure out a way to feed my baby, express milk, and maintain a steady supply, all while tending to the needs of a toddler, an infant, and a bunch of naggy online clients.
When I had my first child, my breasts were constantly engorged. This entailed hours of manual expression in the bathroom as I held my composure through hours of excruciating pain that seemed endless. I would have offered my breast to my daughter instead, but she was so accustomed to the bottle that she refused to latch.
With this second pregnancy, I was almost sure that supply wouldn’t be an issue. Hey – I had so much to spare with my first! How could this be any different? Of course, I was mistaken. Despite latching endlessly with my second baby now, I’ve come to find that my supply isn’t what I thought it would be. Sometimes, hours would pass without my breasts re-inflating. They’d feel like nothing more than limp pancakes with just a little milk to spare for my fussy little boy after he wakes up from his afternoon nap.
Pumping was a nightmare over the first few weeks. I was lucky enough to get an ounce of milk. Often, pumping sessions would end with an accumulated 60 mL collected between both breasts. How pathetic, right? It honestly made me feel inferior, especially with all those Instagram moms showing off their stash of hundreds of milk storage bags and bottles lined up neatly in their freezers.
So this was my problem. How could I increase my breastmilk supply to have enough for my latching baby, and pump to start a stash at the same time?
To cut a long story short – I never really found the perfect lactation aid. Why? Well, it’s simple – they’re so darn expensive! At over PhP 1,000 per bottle of a hundred capsules, I found myself hesitant to dive into such an overpriced product. Plus the fact that I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d actually benefit from using them, I felt like I wasn’t ready to shell out cash for something that seemed so uncertain.
So I turned to baked goodies. Cookies, brownies, and whatever else those creative mommy bakers had to offer. Let me tell you – I was this close to buying a dozen of everything I saw! They all looked so delish! But at the end of the day, I could imagine myself forking down every single baked goodie I would have purchased in less than a day, leaving me no lactation aid to see me through the rest of the week. So that seemed like an impractical choice.
Now, with lactation capsules, cookies, and baked goodies out of the question – what other choices did I have? Feeling like I had run out of options, I scoured the web in search of methods to increase breast milk (that wouldn’t cost me a fortune, and that would guarantee effective results) and I was happy to find that there was at least one more alternative I could try.
You’d be surprised just how effective massage can be for lactating mamas. And really – it works super fast! The idea is that massaging the breasts encourages better blood circulation, unclogs potentially obstructed ducts, and promotes the production of more milk. Being that it was cost-free, easy, and super doable from the comfort of my work desk – what did I have to lose? So right then and there, I started massaging my breasts.
Within minutes, they started filling up with milk. About an hour after I massaged them, they felt really engorged, and I found myself eager to try pumping yet again. To my surprise – the results were astounding!
From a measly 60mL between both breasts, I was able to collect a whopping 80mL FROM A SINGLE BREAST in less than 15 minutes! I honestly couldn’t believe it myself at the start! But it’s been going great so far, and I’ve managed to start out a small stash in my freezer to give my baby when the hubby and I run errands or find time for a date (LOL, like that’s ever gonna happen!)
If you’re wondering how I figured out how to massage my breast, most of it was just assumption. Here’s what I found to be the most effective massage method on my body:
I usually perform the above steps over and over again in that order until I complete about 15 minutes of massage. Keep in mind though that every mama’s body is different, so some of these steps may or may not work for you depending on your body’s reaction. There are some really helpful articles and supplementary materials like this which you can check out to get a better idea of how it’s done.
Mama, if you’re working on a budget like I am, I suggest that you try alternative methods before you shell out your hard earned cash for those expensive supplements! Of course, we all want what’s best for our babies, but there are ways you can give your little rascal the very best nutrition without having to spend more than you can afford.
So, before you click that “checkout” button on your online lactation aid purchase, I suggest you give the breast massage a try! If your body is anything like mine, you might find yourself surprised at how far a little squeeze here and there might take your supply.
Happy milking, mamas!
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