How to Help Dry Up Breast Milk

There are many holistic or non-conventional ways to stop the flow of breast milk. Breast feeding can be a terribly painful process, and there are some tips that you can use to help speed up the process a little.

Sage, parsley or mint may assist in the drying of breast milk. Sage is known as Salvia officinalis and can be taken three times in daily, steeped in tea or in vegetable oil. Tea with sage will be very bitter, so you will need to add large amounts of sweetener, to enable you to drink it. Sage can effectively be added to the food as well. Peppermint may be effective but you will need to take lots of the herb in, almost liters and liters per day for it to be effective.

When women start to breast feed the body produces colustrum, and it may take weeks for the breasts to become dry of milk.

Drink plenty of water. Contrary to belief, this will assist in the drying of the breast milk. Restricting liquid intake will cause you become dehydrated than that may lead to an increase in engorgement.

Apply cabbage leaves to the breasts, and leave them on for two to three days. Be sure to change the leaves once or twice per day to ensure that they will have the optimal effect. You may change the leaves more, because the coolness of the leaves will ensure to help ease the discomfort. You may want to soften, or squish the leaves before applying them to the breasts to ease the comfort. The cabbage may have an anti-inflammatory quality and make the breasts be more comfortable while drying.

Do not pump the breasts - doing so, will just engorge them further and increase the milk production as your body feels that the baby requires additional milk, and will not stop the supply. While you are trying to dry the breast milk be sure not to feed, as this will increase stimulation of breast milk even further. This is because your body works on a supply and demand cycle.

Don't allow the nipples to become stimulated because this may begin, or increase the flow of breast milk.

Breast milk will dry on its own. Usually it will take a week to ten days and the breast milk will decrease to diminish on its own.