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Yucky milk – Jessica’s story

Posted on January 23, 2010
Filed under: Expressing

My daughter loved to breastfeed from the very start, no major problems besides a few clogged ducts every now and then. I became interested in pumping and saving my milk to allow my husband to feed her occasionally, or for car rides. No matter how sanitary and quickly I froze my milk, my daughter would refuse it from the bottle. At first I thought it must just be the bottle she didn’t prefer but I then inspected the milk itself and noticed a soapy off-smell. I tasted it and it also had an aftertase not quite pleasant. I immediately pumped some milk and tasted it- sweet and clean tasting! I pumped more and put it in the fridge. Within the hour it was weird again. I could not figure it out! To top it off, my HUGE supply of bagged frozen milk was also affected by the yuckiness. No wonder my daughter wouldn’t take it from a bottle! After searching online I came accross something called extra lipase in the milk. For reason, some mothers produce milk with more lipase than usual. This is an enzyme that breaks down fats. The extra lipase means that the milk itself is sort of decomposing once it’s outside the breast. The only “cure” to this milk is to scald it before freezing. This is unfortunate because the act of scalding does break down some of the imunity properties. But I found that even scalded breast milk is superior to formula in a pinch. For what it’s worth, I was proud of myself for uncovering the mystery of the yucky milk. I’m now 8 months along with our first son and I’m very curious to see if I will have the extra lipase this time around. I nursed my daughter until she was 18 months and she adored her “boob-boobs”. (:

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Persevering – Leah’s story

Posted on December 2, 2009
Filed under: Breast infection, Breastfeeding while on medication, Engorgement, Flat nipples, Inverted nipples, Latch problems, Mastitis, Nipple pain, Nipple shields, Postnatal depression, Recurrent mastitis, Thrush

My mother breastfed each of us for around 2 years and my older sister breastfed her two boys also. It was just natural that I was going to do the same. During my pregnancy I did a lot of research into breastfeeding, and the more I did, the stronger I felt about it. I wanted a natural birth but was willing to do whatever was necessary to have a healthy baby and not feel too bad about it, I couldn’t even consider the idea that I might not be able to breastfeed though.

When my daughter was born our first feed went pretty well, I was very relieved as I have one flat and one inverted nipple so knew there was a chance that I’d have some trouble, she also had a retracted lower jaw, which means she can’t open her mouth quite as wide as most babies. However our next feed, and all of them after that were not so good. Mackenzie could attach to the flat nipple ok, but not the inverted one, and the midwives at our hospital were terrible, each one would give you conflicting advice and instead of coaching they would snatch my daughter and my breast and force them onto one another, one midwife did this and wouldn’t listen when I said she wasn’t attached properly and when she finished I had a big blood blister on my nipple. Another midwife tried to tell me I was starving and dehydrating my daughter and that they had to give her formula. I refused this though and at that point remembered something my sister had told me “If you have any problems ask for a lactation consultant and don’t listen to anybody else”. I didn’t even know if the hospital had one I’d never heard of one before but at this point asked to see one. The midwife tried to refuse me but I insisted and sure enough a lactation consultant was provided.

To begin with we tried using a breast pump to pull my nipple out but when this didn’t work she gave me a nipple shield and said that the midwives would probably try to tell me that you can’t use a nipple shield before your milk has come in because the colostrum is too thick but this isn’t true and she will get some out. This worked wonders on the inverted nipple and the other nipple she was ok with, I thought my troubles were over. The next day my daughter was admitted to the special care nursery to be observed as she’d turned blu on me and they had me feed her every 3 hours and then express to make sure she was getting enough milk because she had dropped a bit of weight (perfectly normal in the first few days I thought). The midwife who’d tried to give me formula turned the breastpump on full ball on my good nipple and tore it to shreds, there was blood everywhere and over 12m later you can still see where the big tear in my nipple was. It was so painful I couldn’t feed from it so had to use the nipple shield on that side as well. Then to top things off I developed an infection in my uterus which the midwife ignored so I ended up very sick and on an antibiotic drip for a few days. It was so painful I could barely move, every time my daughter needed a nappy change it would take me a good half an hour to get up and do it, plus breastfeeding her was made so much more difficult. They also took a sample of my breastmilk for testing at this time and discovered that on top of everything else I had mastitis.

Finally I got through all the infections and was able to go home with my new baby. When I got home I began suffering from sciatica, which made it very uncomfortable to find a comfortable position to sit in, to feed Mackenzie. I would have to sit on 3 pillows on the couch then I had another 3 pillows arranged on and around me to assist me to hold and feed Mackenzie. To rub more salt in the wound a friend came to visit with her 10mo breastfed baby and of course when she fed her it was so easy and quick and painless it reduced me to tears. She assured me she suffered to begin with and it would get easier but I couldn’t foresee it. I continued to suffer from multiple infections and bouts of mastitis plus a case of nipple thrush (OUCH) for the next few weeks and was constantly on antibiotics, which of course went through my milk causing Mackenzie to have a very upset tummy and lots of diarrhoea. Through all of this, and I can’t emphasise just how painful it was, not feeding was never an option. I never thought of giving up feeding or switching to formula cause it would be easier. Instead I just became more determined to stick it out and it was going to get easier if it was the last thing I ever did!

I decided early on that I wanted to feed for a minimum of 12m or until I got Mackenzie off the nipple shields – whichever was the longer of the two (I’ve since changed my mind and am now well on the way to 2 years old) because I absolutely hated the nipple shields. They took so long to fumble with to get on which meant my daughter would be getting quite distressed, plus many people had never seen or heard of them before so they attracted quite a bit of attention. I tried a few different ways to wean her off them but she wouldn’t touch my nipples without them. I hated that it had to be so difficult – why couldn’t it be easy for me, like it seemed to be for everyone else? One night I went along to a friends church thing with her and they had a parenting room there where about 6 mothers sat feeding their babies with ease, I was so jealous. I went home so angry and upset, but also all the more determined and funnily enough Mackenzie must have picked up on this because she didn’t even try to fight me then next time I tried to feed her I didn’t even have a shield nearby just in case. She latched on like we’d been doing it like this all along. We never used a shield again I was so happy I sat there and cried for hours – happy tears of course.

I continued to suffer with the infections and mastitis (I had a severe oversupply of milk which was in no hurry to settle down) for the next few months but finally somewhere between 4-6 months it all finally settled down and I was able to enjoy what was now a wonderful, easy breastfeeding relationship with my beautiful daughter. I developed post natal depression and had to go onto medication during that time and was very apprehensive about doing so whilst feeding but it was either that or no medication, giing up the breastfeeding has never been an option, even now when contraception has become an issue (I can’t take the mini pill) I would rather go without if necessary then stop feeding her.

She is now 14mo and still feeding wonderfully, giving her her precious boobies is the best part of the day I sit down, relax and cuddle her, it is so beautiful – like nothing else in the world. I still suffer the odd bout of mastitis – for example if she has a few night feeds in a row then sleeps a full night I’ll wake up very sick but that’s ok, I recognise the signs and my dr is very good about getting onto it early. My plan now is to feed her until at least 2 – give her the chance to self wean but I don’t know if I can go that much further – we’ll see I originally thought I’d only go 12m and I quicklychanged my mind on that. I have seen so many girls/women I know give up early on claiming they “couldn’t” breastfeed when in actual fact they just want their babies to sleep through the night or because they got a small crack in their nipple and it hurt too much, this makes me very sad – especially when I fought so hard to continue to feed Mackenzie. It also makes me feel very sorry for the people who really can’t feed because they would probably do just about anything to be able to and get a bad name in certain circles because of other people. If I could tell new mums anything it is to perservere as much as you can, it really is worth it. Somedays you may question that but I am so proud of myself and my daughter and I are so close as a result of it, I’m so, so glad I did.

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Two boys, two different breastfeeding experiences – Patricia’s story

Posted on November 16, 2009
Filed under: Latch problems, Nipple pain, Nipple shields

Breastfeeding my kids is something I’ve aimed to do since I first found out I was pregnant. My oldest son Benjamin and I had a great start in the hospital. From the moment we arrived home, things changed. Latching was an issue and it just didn’t seem like it was worth all of the pain that was created. Through the help of our wonderful pediatrician, the lovely lactation consultants at our hospital, and nipple shields, Benjamin and I were finally able to catch on! Benjamin was nursed until he was 14 months old, when I found out Baby #2 was on the way!

Nathaniel arrived 9 months later and was an eating champ from the first moment! My supply seemed a little lacking, but Nathaniel was eating all the time! He never complained like he was actually lacking anything! I was able to nurse him until he was 9 months old when his interest dropped some and I found out Baby #3 was on the way.

I’m looking forward to nursing another baby! What a joy to know that I can help provide for my kids in such a small way!

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Special: An interview with Heather Cushman-Dowdee (Hathor the Cowgoddess)

Posted on November 1, 2009
Filed under: Engorgement, Interview, Latch problems, Nipple pain

Heather Cushman-Dowdee is a mother of four children aged 12, 8, 5 and 7 months who were/are all breastfed on demand. She is also the brilliant mind behind Hathor the Cowgoddess and has generously donated an autographed copy of her book of breastfeeding comics, The Milk Of Hathor for me to give away to one lucky mama this month. To be in with a chance of winning submit your inspirational breastfeeding story to ibreastfed.com during November. Check out the Diaper Hunt and prize draws info page for more details.

I asked Heather some questions about her breastfeeding experiences.

What are your very first memories of breastfeeding? I don’t mean breastfeeding your own babies, but when you were a child or teenager or young adult? As a youngster did you spend much time around nursing mothers?

I don’t remember spending anytime around nursing mothers, but I played ‘house’ endlessly. It seems like a LOT of my play involved babies but I was likely to give them a bottle and I don’t remember having any knowledge of breastfeeding. So, that being said, I don’t have any idea when it started, but by the time I was pregnant I knew I wanted to breastfeed and I wanted a ‘natural’ (for me, at the time, that meant no pain medication) birth. I had for many years been ‘avant guard-ish’ and I picked up on the fact that natural birth and breastfeeding were outside of the norm, a wee bit scandalous. That helped me choose them.

When you were pregnant with your first child what were your plans for feeding your baby. Had you given much thought to breastfeeding, e.g. how long you would breastfeed for? Did you do any preparation for breastfeeding?

My plan when pregnant with my first was to breastfeed for at least 3 months! I hadn’t given it any thought of planning and didn’t do any preparation. When I left the hospital after the birth I used the hospital’s little pamphlet on breastfeeding as my guide.

How did you find breastfeeding in the early days? Was breastfeeding what you expected it to be? What hurdles did you encounter and how did you overcome them? Did any of these experiences affect how you managed breastfeeding with subsequent children?

I had a LOT of difficulties in the beginning weeks, I had inverted nipples and I didn’t do anything to prepare (see above ;o) I became horribly engorged, baby had a bad latch, and by the 10th day I had cracks that went all the way around both nipples. It hurt like crazy! I talked on the phone with a lactation consultant who had me in tears and just kept telling me that position was important. And then I went to a La Leche League meeting. That’s when everything changed for me. I still had to heal, but I was able to nurse through the pain because I knew I wanted to keep going and that it would be better soon. And it was. With my other kids I have self-made rules, ‘lucky bras’ , and other rituals that keep the cracks away!

As a first-time mom learning to breastfeed, did you have a nearby breastfeeding-friendly support network in those early days/weeks/months? If so, what difference did it make to your early experience of breastfeeding?

I was so grateful to my local LLL meeting, the leaders and their lending library. I went to a meeting, and took home to book the continuum concept, that was it for me, I was an attachment parent! I made my first best-mom-friend and we whiled away the days walking and talking with our babies. It made it all good. I didn’t have a computer at the time, so I missed out on the massive amounts of support that are found there now, but maybe that was a good thing because I had to find local support and face-to-face friendship.

How has your own perception of breastfeeding changed from when you were pregnant with your first child, to now?

It’s hard to compare, it’s kind of like asking about the perception of life before kids and after, that’s the thing about having kids, every single perception changes. It’s one big super-hyper-overdrive-paradigm shift. At least if you’re doing it right. And then kids so fully insinuate themselves into your experience that you can’t barely remember yourself before them. Breastfeeding is like that, but I never guessed that I would be one of breastfeeding’s biggest champions, and yet, here I am.

What have learned about yourself, about your children and about the world though your breastfeeding experiences?

Breastfeeding taught me that I am very self-sufficient. That I am just right, exactly made. I learned that my kids are just right, too. They know when to eat, how much, how to be, how to learn, and knowing this makes my parenting different. I try and meet their expectations of me and the world as perfect for them. I know that they are always doing the best they can (given the circumstances) And that the world is made better by the things that they bring to it, simplicity, self-sufficiency, peacefulness, play, love…

Can you share with us the best piece of breastfeeding advice you ever received?

Don’t pull down your shirt ;o)

How would like the world to have changed with regard to breastfeeding education and support by the time your daughters are thinking about having children?

I really hope that there won’t be any issues with breastfeeding in public. It would be nice to have the whole breasts=sex thing struck from our cultural memory. And I really hope that the La Leche League model of mother to mother support will still be around, perhaps reinvigorated.

You’ve recently launched a new book “Simply Give Birth“, a wonderful collection of birth stories. Can you tell us about the book and your motivation of publishing it?

When I was pregnant with my last two births especially, I spent a lot of time on-line reading birth stories. I liked birth stories that weren’t bogged down in minutiae and were matter-of-fact, I also wanted to read stories that were safe and positive. (When you’re pregnant you have to protect your psyche from fear) so I collected stories that I would have liked to have read and edited, collated, and finally put them into a book. I’ve been in keeping in touch with most of the authors and they’re really great women, the stories are so great.

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Joys and Sorrows of Breastfeeding a baby with a cleft palate – Amanda and Ethan’s story

Posted on October 18, 2009
Filed under: Baby surgery, Breast refusal, Cleft lip/palate, Exclusive expressing, Expressing, Latch problems, Low supply, Low weight gain, Nipple confusion, Nipple shields, Supplemental nursing system (SNS), Syringe feeding, Working mothers

I didn’t always know that I wanted to be a mom like some women. It took me awhile to warm up to the idea. I think I had a major fear of bringing a child into this world and “messing” it up; however, once I married my husband I knew that I wanted a baby. I was diagnosed with PCOS shortly after we were married and after our first pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage. The doctor told us that with treatment it could take up to a year or more for me to get pregnant . Despite the doctor’s cautions to not get our hopes up that it would happen quickly, we were hopeful and when we finally did decide to try we got pregnant right away. We were delighted. We found out that Ethan was a boy early on and I knew that I loved him from the moment I heard that I was pregnant. I did everything right while I was pregnant; ate organically, walked an hour a day and did yoga several times a week. We took a wholistic child birthing class; used all natural cleaning products and personal care products and stayed inside on smog alert days. I wanted to give our baby the best possible start.

Amanda-and-ethan As we prepared for Ethan’s arrival I started to get excited about breastfeeding. I was committed to raising our baby “green”. I went out and purchased nursing bras, went to a breastfeeding class and paid ahead of time to have a lactation consultant come support me in our home after his birth. I had heard of the challenge of breastfeeding from many moms and wanted to be prepared ahead of time. Finally on August 3, 2008, 10 days late, Ethan Paul Dumouchel, 8lbs 8 oz, arrived after a 13 ½ hr, unmedicated labour, with the support of our doula and Obstetrician. I remember that as soon as they put him on my chest, I felt such relief as I observed his perfect little face and ten fingers and toes. He was perfect and beautiful. His APGAR scores were awesome and they took us to our room right away. Through the night I tried nursing him several times as he woke up hungry to be fed. It was a holiday weekend and so the hospital lactation consultant was unavailable. We got Ethan to latch a few times but every time we would hear large “clucking” sounds and then he would fall off. I felt so frustrated as I listened to him scream. I thought the problem was that my breast was too large for his little mouth. I satisfied him as best I could by squeezing colostrum into his mouth. Matt, my husband and I had decided ahead of time that no formula was to be given to our baby and that we would spend as little time as possible in the hospital so we were eager to be discharged. I remember the next morning as clear as day in my mind. I don’t think I will ever forget the words of the pediatrician who came to check him over in preparation to discharge us. “Did anyone tell you about his mouth?”, he asked. What we learned next was that Ethan was born with a cleft in his soft palate. This was the reason for the clucking sounds while breastfeeding; Ethan could not get a good seal while breastfeeding with a hole in the roof of his mouth; . I remember the horror that I felt as I listened to the doctor. Seeing my distress he quickly reassured me that it was “the best kind of cleft to have” because of how small it was. At the time neither Matt nor I knew what a cleft palate would mean for us or for Ethan. They discharged us after setting us up with an appointment with the “Cleft Palate Team” a few days later. The nurse was reluctant but I assured her that the lactation consultant that I had hired would be coming to the house that day to help me. My lactation consultant was wonderful. She got Ethan on my breast right away and although I felt him sucking, it wasn’t very hard and he would quickly fall asleep only to pull away screaming full of air a few moments later. She constantly reassured me that “all babies can breastfeed”. After the first night however, it was clear that it wasn’t working. My lactation consultant suggested nipple shields, whichseemed to do the trick in terms of getting Ethan to latch. He still seemed to struggle with gas from swallowing so much air through his cleft. After weighing him two days after birth, it was evident that Ethan wasn’t getting enough sucking on me. I began pumping and syringe feeding him. I would put him to breast first and let him suck for as long as he wanted and then I would syringe feed him. The “cleft palate team” came on the Thursday, four days after Ethan was born. I remember the words of the feeding specialist very clearly. “Only 1% of babies with a cleft palate successfully breastfeed. I am sorry you won’t be able to breastfeed your son. Does that make you feel disappointed?” To me her words were like a shotgun to my heart. One part of me immediately disliked her and wanted to prove her horribly wrong. The other part of me wanted to succumb to the disappointment and accept what she was saying and move on. I couldn’t even respond to her, I just stood and cried. I remember nothing else that she said that day. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the literature that they provided or to talk about surgeries etc, for weeks after. They gave us a bottle called a Haberman feeder which allows a baby to eat without sucking. I had been determined to avoid giving our baby a bottle for fear that he would prefer it over my breast. My lactation consultant told me that everything that was happening with Ethan was normal for a baby with a cleft palate and that she had helped many moms to successfully breastfeed post surgery if they kept offering the breast every time. I found it really hard to believe. I continued to pump and syringe feed every two hours until Ethan was about 10 days old. He hadn’t pooped since he was born and I was worried that he just wasn’t getting enough. I finally caved and gave him the bottle. It took Ethan thirty minutes to finish a bottle and he immediately pooped. We continued with this trend of giving him the bottle after offering him the breast. My lactation consultant kept encouraging me that we would be that 1% and that babies will always prefer the breast.

Ethan’s weight gain was slow and both the Cleft Palate Team (CPT)and some of the doctors discouraged my desire to breastfeed prior to bottle feeding at every turn. I felt as though they thought I was a bad mother for wanting to breastfeed. The feeding specialist from the CPT kept encouraging me to quit. When Ethan was six weeks he returned to his birth weight. I learned later that, whether breastfed or bottle fed, it’s normal for a baby with a cleft palate to have extremely slow weight gain and that it is common for them to not return to their birth weight until six weeks. I continued to encounter many challenges along the way. At nine weeks my milk supply dropped drastically down to nothing. A combination of exclusive pumping, PCOS and stress over Ethan’s slow weight gain forced us to have to supplement with organic formula. The first time we gave Ethan formula I cried. I felt like such a failure. Not only could I not successfully breastfeed our baby “normally”, I could not make enough milk for him. I tried everything and anything that I could. I tried Domperidone, Blessed Thistle and Fenugreek. I also took Goat’s Rue an herb tincture specially formulated for women with PCOS who are breastfeeding . It was shortly after this that my milk supply came back up a bit. Ethan began taking more and more formula and at three months his weight finally took off and started to catch up with other babies. During this time Ethan went on countless nursing strikes as he learned very quickly that the bottle was the easier way to get food. Each time my lactation consultant promised me that Ethan would come back to breast and he always did. I was determined to not let him forget how to latch. As much as I wanted to believe that someday, if I kept going, Ethan would breastfeed like a normal baby, it was a constant battle in my mind. It was that hope and desire that made me keep going every time I wanted to quit and just give him the bottle. I tried not to take it personally when Ethan would reject the breast but I would often cry in frustration. All along the way I struggled with blocked ducts, and sore, nipples from pumping. Every time I thought about stopping, my husband and my lactation consultant would encourage me on. When Ethan had finally started to catch up with his weight we introduced a supplementary nursing system (SNS). It was messy and awkward and most days Ethan wanted nothing to do with it, but it convinced him to come back to breast after one of the longest nursing strikes that we had ever had. It had been three weeks and he happily sucked away with his new gratification. I continued pumping and using the nipple shields, SNS and Haberman until Ethan was almost ten months old. At this point Ethan had surgery to repair his cleft palate. I pumped while he was in the hospital and sippy cup fed him after his surgery for about a week. In an effort to prevent him from doing too much sucking after his surgery I used the SNS, squeezing the milk into his mouth and offered the breast. He took to it immediately and refused to use the sippy cup. After three weeks the surgeon informed us that his mouth was healing nicely and he could now suck I pulled out the SNS and let Ethan suck away. The first time I felt Ethan suck on the nipple shield after his surgery I cried. I had no idea what a normal suck was supposed to feel like. I was amazed. Ethan had surgery May 25, 2009. For the entire month of June, I began cutting away pieces of the side of the nipple shield and then finally started to cut away pieces of the nipple. Every time I tried to offer my nipple without the shield Ethan would freak out. Finally on July 7, 2009 when Ethan was eleven months old, I slipped the nipple shield off when he wasn’t looking and he latched on and sucked away happily. It was at this moment that I breastfed my baby normally for the first time. I cried. I had known that I was always meant to breastfeed our child but I had doubts that it would ever happen. Hope is a powerful motivator; it kept me going when I thought I had nothing left.

Today, Ethan is a happy, healthy, beautiful, fifteen month old. I nurse him anywhere from 3 to 4 times a day around my part-time teaching schedule. I plan to continue nursing until he is ready to quit. One of the complications of a cleft palate is malfunctioning Eustachian tubes. As such Ethan has tubes in his ears and will need to have them until the soft palate muscle allows the Eustachian tubes to function on their own. Until this time he is prone to ear infections. Breastfeeding as long as we have has helped us to be ear infection. I have never been so proud of anything that I have ever accomplished in my life as I have in the fact that Ethan and I did not give up. I feel joy and happiness every time I breastfeed my son. I am so eternally grateful for what we have accomplished and so proud of Ethan for how far he has come. I never would have breastfed my son if it hadn’t been for my lactation consultant and my wonderfully supportive husband. I now truly believe that “all babies were meant to breastfeed.”

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