The question that follows every new mother went out on Dehradun radio during World Breastfeeding Week

Dr Vijeta Shukla, who runs Vatsalya Lactation Centre in Dehradun alongside her Ayurvedic practice at Achintya Ayurveda, appeared as a guest on Namaskar Dehradun, the morning show on Akashwani Dehradun hosted by Pushpa Pundir. The episode aired at 8.30 am on 2 August, during World Breastfeeding Week, which runs from 1 to 7 August each year.

It was her first time on radio.

The segment took listener questions on breastfeeding and its effects on both mother and baby. One came back to her afterwards more than the others: how does a mother know whether her baby is actually getting enough milk?

She describes it as a question that sounds simple and is not. In her account, it sits at the centre of one of the largest anxieties new mothers carry, and it rarely goes away on its own. Her answer on air was to point mothers towards what the baby is actually doing, the feeding and growth cues in front of them, rather than towards fear or assumption about supply.

It is a small distinction with a large effect. A mother reading cues is watching her own child. A mother reading assumptions is watching her worry.

Vatsalya opened in 2024, after Dr Shukla found there was no lactation consultant in Dehradun when she needed one herself. She reports that around 120 mothers have come through the centre since.

Radio takes that work somewhere a clinic cannot reach on its own. A specialist practice speaks to the mothers who already know to look for it. A state broadcast at half past eight in the morning speaks to the ones who do not.

~Editor Shobhit Mehandiratta