Hilary Duff Opened Up About the Anxiety She Feels Over Breastfeeding

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Three weeks after her third child, Mae James, entered the world, Hilary Duff is opening up about her breastfeeding journey so far. During an April 15th appearance on the Informed Pregnancy Podcast with Dr. Berlin, she got candid about the challenges of nursing baby number three and why she's taking it all one step at a time.

Duff has breastfed all three of her children, including Luca, 9, and Banks, 2. And while she admitted on the podcast that her babies have all latched well, her milk production (or lack thereof) makes the experience "emotional" for her every time.

"Just still painful and it's hard, and it's even harder having the other two that I know need me so much, and this takes up such a huge portion of the day," she said. "It seems like every 20 minutes I'm feeding the baby, and I have to be sitting in one place."

Duff admitted that breastfeeding is giving her anxiety.

"Right now, I don't know that I'm not producing as much as I need, but I think since I haven't in the past, I have tons of anxiety that I'm not, and that she's not getting enough, and then I'm in my head, and then I don't feel like enough, and then the spiral continues from there," she explained.

Yep—this sounds like something a lot of nursing moms can relate to. For now, Duff said she's exclusively breastfeeding Mae, though she's going to decide soon if she wants to supplement her routine with formula. In 2019, Duff shared that she breastfed older daughter Banks for six months before transitioning to formula, because keeping up with pumping at work was beginning to feel impossible.

The decision to breastfeed is often a difficult and very personal one, so it's good to hear that Duff is willing to talk about the reality of it all. In the end, a fed baby is a happy baby, and it doesn't matter whether that baby is full of breastmilk or formula.