Can lying down to breastfeed your baby really be dangerous? Yes, in some cases. There are times when mothers have to breastfeed their baby lying down, like when baby wakes up in the middle of the night to feed or when you are too tired to sit up, hold him and breastfeed him. Since babies often wake up in the middle of the night to feed, so the mother finds a safe and easy position to breastfeed her baby i.e lying down to breastfeed.

”My two kids who are now 3 years old and 5 respectively were breastfed while lying on my side countless times when they want to feed and I’m too tired to sit up and nurse them and nothing ever happened to the two of them. I don’t see breastfeeding lying down as a problem”
Toun 

However, breastfeeding baby to sleep can be dangerous in two cases;

1. Falling asleep while breastfeeding baby

The danger in breastfeeding baby while lying down is if the mother should fall asleep, she can squash her baby to death.  If this happens, the death is often classified as SIDS but it is in fact suffocation, and no mother can feel good knowing she caused the death of her baby.

If a mother accidentally falls asleep while breastfeeding her baby, her breast might cover the nose of her baby while she’s asleep, cutting off the air supply to the baby’s airways, such mother might wake up to a lifeless blue baby and it will be her fault, this guilt is just too much to risk such.

Only mothers who gave birth through C-section are advised to breastfeed while lying down and they should not be tired enough to sleep off. Nursing while lying on your side can cause your baby to choke to death.

2. Ear infection

Nursing your baby while lying on your side can give your baby ear infection. When breastfeeding your baby, it’s easy for the breast milk to swim into one of his ears, when this happens, the fluid builds up in the middle of the ear creating a warm, moist environment where germs love to grow and tada! Bacteria and viruses will invade and thrive in your child’s ear causing them to become cranky, pained and have fever, all of which are symptoms of an ear infection.