The Effectiveness of Acupressure and Fenugreek Therapy in Increasing Breast Milk Production in Postpartum Mothers: Literature Study

Abstract

Inadequate breastfeeding leads to a lack of nutritional intake by infants. Reduced breast milk secretion can be caused by psychological and physiological factors. Not getting enough breast milk can increase the risk of gastrointestinal infections, and obesity in babies. It can also reduce the level of intelligence of children, and increase infant mortality. This study was a literature review with a sample of 10 journals, including ScienceDirect, PubMed, and Google Scholar. The keywords fenugreek OR trigonellas OR Foenumgraceum AND acupressure OR shiatsu OR zhi ya OR chih ya AND feeding OR breastfeeding AND breastfeeding OR milk secretion AND breast milk OR breast milk were used. The exclusion criteria were publications that were older than 10 years, those with irrelevant titles, inaccessible full text, in a language other than English and Indonesian, had the incorrect population, not an RCT journal, was a case-control study, and a quasi-experimental study. The results showed that from a total of 10 journals, fenugreek therapy was found in journal numbers 1 (Egyptian), 2 (Iranian), 3 (Egyptian), and 4 (Indian). Increased breast milk production had a p-value <0.005, but journal number 2 was considered the most effective as an increase in breast milk can be seen from the increase in variables in infants. Acupressure therapy in journals number 6 (Iranian), 7 (Indonesian), 8 (Indonesian) and 10 (Indonesian) was also equally significant in increasing breast milk production with p-value <0.005, but in journal number 10, presenting ST points 17 and ST 18 which was done every 2 days for 2 weeks showed a significantly higher value. To conclude, fenugreek and acupressure both contribute to increasing breast milk production.
 Keywords: Fenugreek-1, Acupressure-2, Breastmilk Production-3, Postpartum-4