These Serene Breastfeeding Drawings Are Guaranteed to Help You Nurse

Breastfeeding might be billed as a beautiful journey between mom and baby, but it can also leave plenty of women feeling stressed, anxious, and frustrated — not to mention in physical pain. Enter artist Joy Hwang's dreamy drawings: the ultimate visualization technique.

The illustrator herself struggled as a new mom when nursing her newborn.

"One of the hardest assignments I received as a new mom was to keep my baby alive with my boobs," Hwang told POPSUGAR. "I've always imagined it would come naturally and magically, but it was quite the opposite."

In fact, she had issues building her milk supply, she'd pump at all hours of the night, and she would invariably find herself crying alongside her daughter, with whom she struggled to bond with at first. For catharsis, she put pencil to paper and created surprisingly serene depictions of some of those trying times. Cool colors, floating imagery, and soft lines all combined to create images that showed the beauty of breastfeeding, even at its most complicated.

"It helped me to connect with my baby through the only way I knew how," said Hwang, who posts her art on her Mom Is Drawing account on Facebook and Instagram. "Even on days filled with my amateur mom struggles, I had more inspiration to draw about them."