INFOGRAPHICPREGNANCY

What Is Chestfeeding?

By Josey Murray
Reviewed by Alyssa Quimby, M.D.
August 07, 2024
chestfeeding noun Feeding your baby at the chest with the milk your body produces or a supplemental nursing system.

“Chestfeeding” is a word for feeding your baby at your chest with the milk your body produces during and after pregnancy. It also encompasses infant feeding that uses a tube attached to your body providing your baby with expressed milk, donor milk, or formula.

It’s also known as breastfeeding, bodyfeeding, or nursing. People who can produce milk, which may include cisgender women, transgender men, and some nonbinary people, may find one term or another more fitting to their lifestyle, identity, or experiences.

Chestfeeding allows you to nourish your baby while providing important skin-to-skin contact. Chestfeeding with your own milk can begin within the first hour after delivery for healthy infants and can continue for up to two years or more.

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