Breastfeeding Woes

If you don't want to read about breastfeeding, I recommend you skip this post :)

Our journey with feeding has not been an easy one. I always planned to breastfeed, but it was not to be. However in saying I'm not breastfeeding, S is still in fact getting the benefits of breastmilk, but I'll get into that in a minute.

When I found out I was pregnant, one of the only things I actually knew straight away was that I wanted to breastfeed, and to do it for as long as possible. I requested immediate skin to skin after birth and S latched on like a champ when she was first born so I thought we'd have no issues...until the pain started a day or so later. I had many different nurses check positioning and latch and they said it was perfect, so I could not figure out why I was having such severe pain when feeding. It felt like razor blades every time she latched, and did not subside during the feeding either. I remember all the times I sat in my feeding chair with tears streaming down my face whilst trying to feed S due to the pain. S had also lost more than 10% of her birth weight by the time she left hospital on day 5 and this worried the doctors and nurses, so I felt like a complete failure in that I couldn't even feed my baby properly. On S's third night of life, and once more during our hospital stay, we resorted to topping her up with formula and I felt to guilty yet relieved when we saw she was finally satisfied and slept properly for the first time.

Although the formula helped, I did not want to give up. I called up the hospital to book an appointment with their lactation consultant in the second week of S's life and luckily they were able to get me in the next day. During my appointment the nurse checked her mouth and said that S had a tongue tie and that it would be causing latching problems. I could not believe that this had not been picked up by the pediatrician during her initial checks nor any of the nurses whilst we were in hospital considering I was in so much pain. I booked into the pediatrician that day, and then was referred to a pediatric surgeon that very afternoon (was so lucky that had an appointment available). The surgeon did a snip under the tongue to release the membrane with surgical scissors, and I fed S straight away. I saw an immediate change in the way she latched and she was playing with her tongue poking it in and out which was great to see.

I thought this would solve my breastfeeding problems, but I was again mistaken. S continued to lose weight as picked up by the pediatrician. We did some tests to check there was nothing wrong with her, which all came back clear, and then I was told to exclusively bottle feed her for a whole week to try and ensure she is getting enough calories. I felt my heart sink in the doctors office when he told me that, as I had read so much about putting babies on the bottle then having them refuse to breastfeed afterwards. As I still had milk, rather than putting her straight onto formula I made the decision to express what I could, and top up with formula instead. After one week, she had put on over 100grams which felt amazing, and I had done this on almost exclusively expressed breast milk. Since she had gained weight, I was told I should try breast feeding again, so we tried and tried, but S refused to stay latched on and we would always end up frustrated and angry (her for not getting food, and me for trying to feed her). Again I was very deflated by this, as I knew I had milk for her and I wasn't yet ready to give up.

So I made the decision to pump. And I pumped and pumped. I started pumping around 8-10 times a day for a couple of weeks. These were the hardest weeks as it felt like I was constantly attached to the pump, and to be honest it was really hard to bond with S during that time. Almost every day I was ready to throw in the towel, but somehow I kept on adding one more day and eventually it became easier and before I knew it we had made it to 3 months.

My supply wasn't great so I tried everything under the sun to try and improve it, I have eaten my body weight in lactation cookies! My supply did increase, but not enough to satisfy S, so I visited my fabulous GP who prescribed Motilium, a drug which side effects includes increased milk production. After taking this, I was producing over 800mls a day! S drinks any where from 700ml-1L per day so I was really happy it worked. On days where I don't produce enough, we supplement with a bottle of formula at night.

I eventually was able to wean myself off Motilium, and reduce my pumping sessions to 5 times a day (including one early morning between 3-5am) without a major reduction in the amount of milk each day. Now that I only have to fit in 5 sessions per day, it is much more manageable and I have lots of time to spend with S, as most of the time it fits in with her naps.

Reaching 3 months of full time expressing was a huge achievement for me, and S is now approximately 80% breast milk fed and 20% formula fed. I often think about why I keep doing this, as it is exhausting (I haven't had a solid night's sleep in over 3 months) and time consuming, but I look at S and see how she is thriving, and if the breast milk is contributing to that I don't want to jeopardise anything by stopping. I have nothing against formula at all, but whilst I have the ability to provide milk for S without also jeopardising my health, I feel that its my job to do so.

Every drop is for her.

Riette
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