Better Breastfeeding

A Doctor's Guide to Nursing Without Pain and Frustration

By: Linda D. Dahl MD

Narrated by: Linda D. Dahl MD

The ultimate modern-day breastfeeding guide, with empowering, medically sound advice and solutions for the trickiest issues—from a pioneering ENT doctor and breastfeeding expert.

In today’s breastfeeding-friendly environment, the pressure to nurse is intense. We hear over and over that breastfeeding is natural, and every woman can do it. The truth is, the majority of moms need help breastfeeding, but they’re forced to sift through varying viewpoints from a dizzying host of sources instead of being able to turn to a doctor for advice. And when breastfeeding doesn’t work, they’re the ones getting blamed for failure.

In Better Breastfeeding, you will find information, not opinions: science-backed facts to help you make informed decisions, without feeling ashamed or bullied. Dr. Linda Dahl presents a new paradigm for breastfeeding based on diagnosing and treating mothers and babies using anatomy and physiology, offering a comprehensive overview of how breastfeeding works, why it fails, and what to do about it. Dr. Dahl takes you through the basics of breastfeeding in a week-by-week guide and explores solutions for little-understood difficulties like gape restriction and tongue tie, nipple and breast pain, issues with milk supply, or abnormal nursing behaviors.

Better Breastfeeding is the no-holds-barred primer that every mom needs before and during her breastfeeding journey so she can advocate for herself and her baby.

Critic reviews

“I really wish this book had been around when I was having my babies. Linda has made the information that we actually need and want available to us all in a straightforward, accessible, easy-to-comprehend way, never losing sight of how fraught these early days of motherhood can be. She has given us all a gift.”—Brooke Shields

“It is so refreshing to hear someone demystify breastfeeding! Every woman’s breastfeeding journey is her own and full of unique challenges. I’m excited about Dr. Dahl’s direct approach to the complexities of breastfeeding.”—Connie Simpson, author of The Nanny Connie Way

she hates her job

the author should have had someone else narrate this book for her. Her tone is so derisive and sneering that it gives the impression that she hates you and your baby for even thinking if trying to breastfeed, because you're so obviously incompetent and doomed to fail. I have listened to a lot of IBCLCs on the topic, and put in months of research on my own, but i didnt make it past the first 3 hours of this because the author is so passive agressive towards the reader. in the end she's just a ENT, not a goddess of breastfeeding, so take her with a spoonful of salt.

Horrible advice from an ENT with no reported formal lactation education

As an IBCLC, I found Dahl’s advice for moms to lack empirical evidence and, in several cases, run contrary to common evidence-based practice in lactation. Dahl does not state that she has lactation education of any kind, which begs the question of why a physician with her training would write a book about breastfeeding. At best, Dahl’s advice seems anecdotal, and at worst, fear-mongering. New parents should NOT waste their time with this book and instead seek help from a well-trained and recommended IBCLC in their local area.