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The winner of the November prize draw is Leah!

Congratulations Leah!

Great Cloth Diaper Hunt

Congratulations to the 451 hunters who found the Diaper Decisions icon on ibreastfed.com. For those of you who didn't quite get there and are bursting to know what on earth I was trying to get you to do, I've published a walkthrough on the Diaper Decisions forum. I've taken the icon down from ibreastfed.com but I'll leave the clues for a few days so that those of you who are interested can go back and see how it worked.

Unfinished Business - returning to the breast after a 12 month break - Sif’s story

Posted on November 25, 2008
Filed under: Breastfeeding beyond infancy (2 years +), Breastfeeding through pregnancy, Suck training, Unweaning

When I first became pregnant with my eldest, I had never considered that I might breastfeed my baby. I’d never seen breastfeeding in my family or anywhere else in society. It was only when I started reading pregnancy books that I realized that breastfeeding was the “optimal choice”. To be honest, I was attracted to breastfeeding because it was “free”!

When my son was born, it took a few days to established a successful latch, and then we were off and running. I was very lucky never to have issues with mastitis or cracked nipples, and my child loved the three hourly breastfeeding “routine” my maternal and child health nurse advised me to adhere to.

Solids were introduced at 4 months of age, and by around 9 months of age, my son was having three regular feeds a day. I assumed I’d wean him at around 12 months of age, like all the good parenting books advised.

As 12 months drew closer, I found that I didn’t feel a strong desire to wean him. To me, he was still very much a baby, so we continued our breastfeeding relationship and I surfed the net to see if there were other mothers “breaking the rules” and breastfeeding beyond 12 months. I found there were, and many were breastfeeding well into the preschool years, and to the benefit of their children’s health and emotional well-being. Some mothers were even breastfeeding more than one child at a time when they had subsequent babies.

We were planning our second child and I was inspired by other mothers’ stories of breastfeeding through pregnancy and then tandem feeding – these things sounded like something I would like to do!

When my son was 15 months old, I became pregnant again.

It wasn’t long before I discovered that breastfeeding during pregnancy could be quite uncomfortable, and sometimes downright painful! To my secret relief, my son soon cut out his midday feed. Then at around 17 months of age he cut out his bedtime feed as well. Over the next month I noticed that he wasn’t interested in his morning feed every day either. I started to worry that he was weaning, and did some research on the internet.

I found that many babies cut back or even weaning during their mother’s subsequent pregnancy, but often have a renewed love affair with the breast once colostrum starts to be produced in the third trimester. I hoped this is what would happen with my son.

When my son was 19 months old he dropped his last feed completely.

I was both sad that he hadn’t chosen to breastfeed longer than 19 months, and hopeful he would come back to the breast within a couple of months when I started to produce colostrum. I continued to offer him the breast, but he just wasn’t interested.

Sure enough, in my last trimester of pregnancy I was able to express tiny amounts of colostrum, and I offered him the opportunity to taste it and told him it was sweet, as he’d told me my milk had tasted salty (and I’d sampled it and found it was – since then I’ve come to believe I probably wasn’t drinking enough water during my pregnancy and this caused dehydration, causing the milk to taste saltier). He wouldn’t have a bar of the breast.

When my son was 23.5 months old, his little brother arrived. During the first month of my second son’s life, I offered my first son the breast several times, but he wasn’t interested. After that I was too distracted with the medical needs of my second child and my own post natal depression to try and encourage my older son to breastfeed, I simply assumed our breastfeeding relationship had reached its natural end.

When my younger son was seven months old, so 12 months after my older son had weaned, I was sitting on the lounge room floor feeding him and my older son indicated that he wanted to know what the milk tasted like. I expressed a bit of milk for him into a cup and he drank it and then asked for more!

The following day, he asked for more milk, and I started to express some more, but he indicated that he wanted to drink it directly from my breast. I hesitated a moment, he seemed so big now - he was 2.5 years old – and to my mind he was weaned, so it seemed strange that he wanted to breastfeed again after all this time. I offered him the breast, but he lay there in my lap with his open mouth motionless over the nipple, as if waiting for the milk to flow from my breast like water from a tap.

Realizing he’d forgotten how to suckle, I offered to express milk for him, and he accepted a cup with milk in it.

The following day he asked to breastfeed again. It occurred to me that for him this was somehow “unfinished business”. I said he needed to suck the milk out, so he attempted to suck on my breast as if from a straw (ouch!). I realized I’d have to teach him how to suck from the nipple all over again. To do this, I put my little finger into his mouth, the way I routinely did with his little brother when he needed to suck for soothing (he had severe reflux and needed to suck even when he wasn’t hungry and would reject the nipple, but he wouldn’t take a dummy, so I let him suck on my fingers instead)…

I had my older son “practice” suck on my little finger and when I could feel that he was moving his tongue the way he would to extract milk from the nipple, I got him to try sucking at my breast.

The look on his face when his sucked his first taste of breast milk that day was priceless! His eyes lit up and he fed for 10 minutes. He was so happy!

I, on the other hand, was a little worried about what people might think about my previously weaned 2.5 year old coming back to the breast 12 months after fully weaning – in particular, what my husband would think!

That night I told my husband about what had been happening over the previous couple of days, and at first he felt our son was taking “a step backwards, regressing”… I explained to him that I felt our son was actually just concluding unfinished business; that his breastfeeding needs had been interrupted by the pregnancy and he’d weaned because the milk didn’t taste right to him, not because he was “ready” to wean. I said that felt, for his emotional development, allowing him to finish the breastfeeding relationship on his terms would be beneficial. Luckily I have an open-minded and compassionate husband who decided to support this turn of events even though it was something completely unexpected for him (and for me too!).

My son weaned completely, for the second and final time, when he was 4 years and 10 months of age, on his own terms, when his needs had been met.

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Two stories of tongue tie - Leah’s story

Posted on November 20, 2008
Filed under: Latch problems, Nipple pain, Tounge tie

My daughter Audrey was born in 2003. I researched a lot about breastfeeding and was excited about feeding my baby. We had had a pretty woeful birth experience, and unfortunately the unpleasant times continued in hospital for us post partum. We ended up staying 8 days, during which time she had IV antibiotics, and I developed an infection as well. But what I recall with the most sadness is the difficulties we faced from the staff over breastfeeding, on top of our physical challenges.

Audrey didn’t latch well, and it took a long time for my milk to come in, maybe 5 or 6 days. I was happy to demand feed, I knew it was optimal. And I knew what a good latch was meant to look like, and only very rarely did we get anything resembling one. I was always being asked when and how long she’d fed, in a clockless room, on strong pain relief, which complicated my reporting of popping her on and off the boob on cue. So more stress for not being compliant.

The night nurses were relentless in badgering me to “top her up”, tsk tsk’ing over how “dry” she was, telling me the urates in her nappy was because she was dehydrated. On the back of everything we’d experienced, with a brand new baby, the stress of this was unbelievable. Eventually I told them if they wanted me to supplement I’d only do it after speaking to a paediatrician. ”Oh you don’t have to ask a doctor, we can just give it to her!” the nurse exclaimed. I think they worked undercover for formula manufacturers, missing my point that I wasn’t giving it to her without a clear and present danger of something horrible happening without it.

Thankfully the paediatrician confirmed she wasn’t dehydrated and told me “I hate formula” which made me feel I’d finally found someone who had cracked open a book on infant feeding in the last 30 years! I had a visit from a lactation consultant, and to be perfectly honest I can’t recall the substance of that visit, whether we discussed the possibility of tongue tie or not, but I think not, as no plans past visiting the breastfeeding clinic on discharge were made. My nipples were quite damaged at this point.

We eventually got discharged, with extra domiciliary visits to monitor her weight as she’d lost 420grams from her 4000 gram birth weight, and had only stabilised the loss over 2 days before we left. The first domiciliary nurse we met, when she was 9 days old, confirmed she had tongue tie and referred us to a GP to have it assessed and snipped. We attended the breastfeeding clinic the next day, where I felt more and more the problem was Audrey’s tongue, not me being too damn dense to get the lesson of how to latch a newborn on. On her 12th day, we attended the GP to have her tongue tie looked at.

From what I can gather, snipping tight frenulums had been out of favour for awhile. I knew about it from one of the books I’d read, which I believe now was a copy of Babies, Breastfeeding and Bonding by Ina May Gaskin, which I’d borrowed from my library. I knew it could save a breastfeeding relationship. Most other sources I found were far more conservative about snipping them, although nearly all reported it was a very mild procedure.

Unfortunately for us, it wasn’t like that for Audrey. She screamed and bled a lot and was obviously in distress for many hours after the snip. I believe her frenulum was quite thick and short. I’ve felt bad for years since that I took other people’s word that it wouldn’t hurt - I felt it was the same lie they tell about circumcision. Both my partner and I remember it with a pretty heavy heart. However, she was able to latch on, still crying, to my breast immediately, and for the first time we had an awesome, easily achieved latch! We attended the breastfeeding clinic again two days later, where I got some more advice about latch, but really the greatest thing was finally having something nice said to me … the lactation consultant there told me Audrey was a very lucky baby as I left her on to dream feed. So nice to finally get some kudos for doing what I felt was right, and not constant worry and criticism on top of my own concerns.

It took my nipples a few weeks to recover. Audrey was never a great weight gainer on breastmilk alone. In retrospect, my breasts changed minimally in her pregnancy compared to my next, and I think the physical difficulties plus 12 days of nipple feeding meant I never established a very plentiful supply. However, I was a faithful demand feeder, and she fed a LOT! She exclusively breastfed for 6 months, and we ended our breastfeeding relationship shortly after her 5th birthday. Breastfeeding Audrey has been something beautiful in life I am very grateful for. Apart from some marathon feeds that taught me the meaning of patience, we had a dream run, it was always the easiest part of mothering her.

Owen was born last month. I had learnt in the meantime that a lack of Vitamin A could be implicated in tongue tie, so was hoping my conception regime would mean we dodged that bullet. But I knew pretty soon after his birth he had a tongue tie, he had the classic heart shaped tongue when he poked it out. Whereas Audrey couldn’t poke hers out at all, his was longer and more stretchy.

We’d planned a homebirth but because of complications we were in hospital. Despite it being a world away from our first experience, I told noone about his tongue tie, wanting to blow that joint and deal with it later as he was latching reasonably well and causing no nipple damage. My milk was in quite early and the nurses didn’t care so much we fed a lot, I’d just make up a last time he fed time for them that looked good! There was many spooky similarities between their births, but with a twist - like this time the nurse was changing his nappy for me while I hobbled to the loo. She asked me to come look in his nappy and showed me the urates. ”Here we go again!” I thought, but then she proceeded to explain they are normal and she didn’t want me to worry and think it was blood. I bet it is something she has told a thousand mothers, but she will never know how that little bit of kindness and concern for us helped undo a bit of the manipulation and lack of care of how I felt the time before, when I felt they were gagging to get formula down my baby’s throat!

When the baby doctor was checking him for discharge, she discovered his tongue tie. She was already going the extra mile to get us out of there that day (he too had had iv antibiotics and she’d been great about chasing up test results and ending treatment early, and wasn’t worried about his almost 10% weight loss) and I was really not happy to have his tongue tie hold us up! Things move slowly in hospitals in my experience. She had a lactation consultant come and assess him, and it was found he easily qualified for a snip based on the criteria. She reiterated to me what I knew from 5 years ago, that we might get by on hormonal supply for 6 weeks and find we run into supply problems and a difficult to correct latch, even if my nipples were now pliant and tough enough to cope! And that we still would have the long term risks of caries and speech impediments. With a lot of anxiety an hour later I accompanied him down to the treatment room with the LC and baby doctor, promising him this was the last awful thing that would happen and we were going home. I told them Audrey’s snip had been horrific and they tried to assure me that was extremely unusual. They sat me on a chair, and had him on the treatment table. He complained with a little squawk as she opened his mouth with her fingers, and I looked away. Then they seemed to just sit him up, told me it was done and he was just looking around. He wasn’t bleeding. He was completely unfazed! Meanwhile I had begun to shake, as I had expected to be focusing on and feeding a screaming hurt baby - I could keep myself together for my boy, but he didn’t need me to, and so now all my emotions bubbled over. The lactation consultant had to carry him back to our room, I was too flustered, telling her repeatedly how I wish my partner could have seen that and how different it was from Audrey’s.

In many ways, his being so minor like I was led the believe before hers, has relieved a lot of my guilt about her pain. I always felt it was the one thing that allowed us to breastfeed but couldn’t help feel bad about her suffering, and like I’d been a fool to believe it wouldn’t be bad.

3 and a bit weeks in, we’ve already had a dream run feeding, tongue tie didn’t even make a dent. He feeds very differently than his sister, she was way more committed, he mucks about a lot more and somehow thinks his little fists might give him some joy as he bats away my boob to try and latch on them instead! However, I hope we enjoy a long loving stint as a breastfeeding duo, and I am looking forward to the years ahead of us.

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Breastfeeding Modified - Anne’s story

Posted on November 19, 2008
Filed under: Expressing, Latch problems

Breastfeeding was always the plan. I thought I was prepared. I took the class, bought the books, researched the best pump; I was ready. What I wasn’t ready for was a little girl who couldn’t latch, cried when I tried to feed (she was later diagnosed with reflux) and a small hospital with 12 births that weekend, 11 of whom were breastfeeding. Needless to say the LC was stretched thin and I never got 5 minutes with her. I went home completely defeated but still determined that my little girl would be breastfed. Determination soon turned into frustration for not only me but also my daughter. I was just about ready to give up when I remembered my well researched, expensive breast pump. My saving grace! I hooked that baby up and started pumping. My first time yielded 4 oz out of each breast! I now realized that I didn’t have to give up on my dream and plan to breastfeed my daughter, I only had to modify it. I decided that if actual breastfeeding wasn’t going to work for us then I would do the next best thing and exclusively pump. I started myself on a very strict schedule of pumping for 20 minutes every 3 hours; even through the night. Everything I read told me that exclusively pumping was impossible and there was no way I could keep up my supply. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Soon, I established an amazing supply; a fridge and freezer stock pile and a little girl gaining weight right on track. After a month or two I was able to stop pumping at night and take myself down to pumping every four hours during the day. Each pumping session would give me anywhere from 6-12 oz. Sure, it wasn’t always convenient but I knew I was doing what was best for my daughter and that made it all worth it. I hope this story helps others to know that just because breastfeeding doesn’t work doesn’t mean you have to give up. I was able to exclusively pump with no problems and my daughter is now a happy and healthy 2 year old.

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I was always going to breastfeed - Jo-Anne’s story

Posted on November 14, 2008
Filed under: Caesarean birth, Engorgement, Expressing, Inverted nipples, Latch problems, Nipple pain, Nipple shields, Oversupply, Premature baby, Tounge tie, Tube feeding

I was always going breastfeed. It was just how babies were fed. At least that’s what seemed to happen in my family. I distinctly remember various aunts and cousins breastfeeding. So while being pregnant was a major surprise the fact that I would breastfeed wasn’t. I did lots and lots of reading and researched breastfeeding and all looked good. I was all set to join the breastfeeding assocation and do a breastfeeding education class.

However then it all went wrong. With my first pregnancy I had a complete placental abruption. Basically my placenta fell off and our little boy died. He was 36 wks gestation and just lovely. It was a hard to cope with and made even harder by my first experience of lactation – which was to suppress it. Most people that have such a huge bleed don’t even get their milk in. Mine was there in buckets.

Life settled a bit and I became pregnant 6mths after Liam’s birth. Due to my history and Liam being 36wks I booked for an elective caesarean at 34 weeks plus 6 days. This of course would result in the baby going to the Centre for Newborn Care (CNC). Not that I really cared about that but it was going to be odd given that my husband worked there permanently and I also did casual shifts there.

My booked LSCS (lower segment caesarean section) was on time, a blessing for someone who doesn’t do the whole fasting thing very well. I tend to get very cranky. I had a spinal – similar to an epidural. That went well pain/feeling wise. Although the wardsman seemed to think bending over a baby wasn’t difficult and wanted more bend!! The block went right up to my arm pits, making it quite difficult to breathe. Oliver was fine as he came out and I was able to see him briefly. My husband whisked him off to the isolette to keep him warm (with stories of cold babies ringing in our ears) and off they went to the CNC.

I took a while in recovery as the block just wouldn’t go. My left leg was numb for 8hrs. I went back to the ward via the CNC. I couldn’t believe my eyes that there was Oliver. I had wanted to get him out for a breastfeed but he was having problems breathing and was needing O2 and in an isolette. Nothing unusual for a LSCS and a boy. Visiting the CNC post delivery was fantastic. There is nothing worse then arriving in your room post delivery with no baby.

Back on the ward the midwife got me to express. Well that was fun: lying slightly propped, so bombed on pain relief I couldn’t focus or speak without slurring, trying to capture colostrum. Most of it ran down my hands but we got a bit and my husband Mick took it up to the CNC.

The next day I went up to the CNC in a wheelchair. I had given up on the IV pain relief by that stage, so I could use my brain. Oliver was looking much better, off O2 and in an open cot.

So we had a go at breastfeeding. Trying to attach a very small baby (he was 2.4kg) was tricky and time consuming. He had no idea and didn’t think a nice wide mouth at all necessary. It also turned out he was just too small to suck hard enough to draw out my inverted nipples. Luckily for me there was a lactation consultant on. She came and assessed the non attaching feed and suggested using nipple shields. Once I started using nipple shields it all fell in to place. Oliver was able to attach and suck well. It was certainly not comfortable feeding, in fact down right excruciating would be a good term. Sucking basically rips all the tissue attachments that keep the nipple in. I screwed up my toes and breathed deeply. Feeds hurt the most at the start and then settled to a dull pain which I could cope with.

I found feeding problematic in that it was hard to get everything organised post caesarean – pillows, baby, the towel to catch vomits (his) and leaks (mine and his), nipple shields (those things are tricky to get on and then just as you’re ready they fall off). The lack of privacy didn’t help either. My top was always in the way and really I would have liked to just get rid of it. Nevertheless once I was set Oliver fed well. He was getting more than enough milk, even though it took an hour each time. Oliver also vomited lots. He had reflux and didn’t like formula. Once I had enough breast milk happening the volumes of his vomits decreased. I later discovered that he didn’t tolerate cow’s milk anyway. Custard, cream, cow’s milk all led to vomiting.

To start with Oliver only breastfed twice a day because it he was too tired to do more. Being under phototherapy for 24hrs didn’t help either. To start with Oliver breastfed once in the morning and once in the evening - as far apart time wise as we could manage. The rest of the feeds were via the nasogastric (NG) tube, a tube through the nose into the stomach. I expressed each time he didn’t breastfeed and was having a hard time keeping up with the volume required. Babies in the CNC receive set volumes calculated on the baby’s weight. It is very disconcerting to know exactly how much milk you need to produce. And the likelihood that you will immediately produce this much is very slim, particularly with first time breastfeeders.

Expressing was a bit of a shock too. I seemed to need to express every time I turned around. I’d go and visit Oliver and need to express, I’d finally make it back to the ward only to realise I needed to express. I was OK up in the CNC as the expressing room was quite close. However on the ward the room where the pumps were kept was way down the corridor. Then the pump had to be returned after use in case someone else needed it. It all turned out to be an awful lot of exercise for someone who was supposed to take it easy post caeser. Then of course was the added extra that I’m sure those pumps were an instrument of torture. For the first time breastfeeder the suction on pumps is so strong. I couldn’t turn it down far enough and so gritted my teeth and screwed up my toes again. A lesson on how to hand express to start with wouldn’t have gone astray. I had a picture of Oliver to have with me when expressing. Although I think the pain associated with pumping probably negated any good psychological effect the photo may have had.

Of course once I really got into breastfeeding I could have used a pump with suction twice as strong. I remember shocking a newly breastfeeding mum with turning the suction and rate right up before I’d even started. She didn’t believe me that she’d get there too.

I spent most of my day in the CNC. It was easier then going up and down and doing lots of walking. I would nurse Oliver and read in between breastfeeds and tubes – tubes being feeds via a tube into Oliver’s stomach. The CNC was busy as usual, so I did most of the NG tube feeds. I mean I’d had the practice before. I also took Oliver down stairs with me frequently. So much so that the other parents were questioning why I could do that and they couldn’t. They didn’t seem to understand really that we both worked in the CNC and it really did make a difference.

The expressing room was also an eye opener regarding what the parents knew about babies other than their own. Basically they knew most of the information that they could understand – and all this with out having asked the babies parents. Also there was a lot of gossip and discussion about how stupid it was they couldn’t look at other people’s babies and had to leave during handover. There was no recognition of confidentiality at all. It wasn’t all mothers but a majority. I just sat and listened and got out quick.

I was discharged on day 6. Oliver stayed for 14 days. We could have taken him home a bit earlier but I had a panic attack about coping with breastfeeds and tubes and expressing.

Once I was discharged I got lifts back to the hospital and stayed until someone could pick me up. My husband Mick had gone back to work at this stage so I would go in with Mum at 8.30 and come home with Mick at 9.30pm when he finished his shift. Between not being able to drive and trying to get in enough suck feeds so we could go home I ended up staying at the hospital for 14 hrs a day. Not very restful. I would however manage to fit in 3-4 breastfeeds each day. To go home with the neonatal early discharge program the baby needs to have 4 sucks feeds and the parents be taught to do the rest with tubes. The tubes weren’t an issue but those breastfeeds were hard to get in. I could have agreed to a bottle at night but I really wasn’t keen to do that. I can see that if I had other children at home I may have gone with that option in order to get home though.

We were booked in with early discharge program. They would come and do 2 tubes a day, check and weigh the baby. It’s a brilliant service and means you get the baby home much more quickly.

Finally on a Tuesday I had had enough of being in hospital and at work with my baby. We were booked to go the next day, that being when early discharge program could fit us in, but I wanted out NOW. Mick was on a morning so finishing at 3.30pm so we went home with him. I was lovely to be at home. Straight away everything was easier. I was able to do alternate tube breastfeeds that night. The only unfortunate thing was when my milk came in there was masses of it. So I still had to express once I’d breastfed.

Having to breastfeed or tube and express every 3 hours was mind numbing. I had a sheet of paper with feed times, which side and how much, written down. Otherwise I had no idea what was happening. The alarm clock was also a life saver. Once Oliver was only having the odd tube feed things were a lot easier. I wasn’t so tired and just breastfeeding meant a lot less cleaning, sterilizing etc.

Oliver was a keen breastfeeder and we got the hang of it reasonably quickly. I had masses of milk so I never had a low supply issue even though I used nipple shields for 4mths. In fact he was such a pig he would vomit because he drank too much and then vomit from his reflux. Very very messy and meant lots of clothes washing. After a week we did away with the NG tube. Oliver helped by pulling it out. He continued to grow well and we were discharged from early discharge program.

My next baby Sophie was a different ball game.

With my 2nd pregnancy I had used a manual pump to express at home and I wasn’t going to do that again. So very early on I found out about hiring pumps. The person I spoke to suggested expressing prior to the baby’s birth. Given I knew she would be early it seemed like a good idea. I expressed once a day the week before my booked caesarean. I managed to express 100mls. It was quite amazing how quickly I had milk given the few times I expressed.

On the day of Sophie’s birth Mick took the breast milk round to the CNC. They were all very impressed.

Funnily enough Sophie was also born at 34+6 wks gestation. She only had problems with maintaining her temperature and was in an isolette on and off. The temperature was partly to do with her size. Sophie was only 2kg.

The block from the spinal with Sophie’s caesarean was much lower, only to my belly button to be exact. This was on the painful side during the delivery. Though it also meant I was out of recovery visiting Sophie with in a couple of hours. Sophie was wide awake looking round. So she was popped out and put to the breast. My position, lying fairly flat wasn’t optimal but she knew what to do and managed to lick and have the odd suck. There was milk going everywhere so we were both fairly wet by the time she finished.

Back on the ward I hand expressed 20mls of milk to the astonishment of the midwife. The next day the milk had gone and the colostrum was back. It only took 2 days for my milk to come in though. So Sophie didn’t ever have any formula.

Breastfeeding this time round was so much easier even though I had started to wonder did I still know how to feed a newborn. But it was fine. Sophie knew what she was doing. I knew I needed to use nipple shields and I remembered all the positioning and attachment. Of course I wasn’t learning everything from scratch. And any privacy issues didn’t concern me, having breastfed all over the place with Oliver I was used to it. All I wanted was to get home.

One of the other things I remember well was that I was starving. I am always hungry when pregnant and it increases when I’m feeding. I wasn’t able to walk the distance to the café post-caesarean, Mick only came in, late in the afternoon with Oliver. And my sister had just had her baby so my visitors were a bit light on too. There just wasn’t enough food in the place. I was glad to get home and be able to eat lots!

On Day 6 I was discharged home and Sophie came too. She was still having issues with her temperature so we had to check that frequently. She also was only having 2 breastfeeds a day at the start. Meaning I had to tube 6 feeds. Thankfully she progressed quickly to more breastfeeds. We came home again with the early discharge program follow-up. We were discharged from the early discharge program after 4wks. About the same time as Oliver even though he was in hospital longer.

It was exhausting doing that many tube feeds and I had a major oversupply issue. I had to write everything down again. Sophie only fed from one side, and then I would need to express the other for comfort. It took about 4wks to decrease my supply to Sophie’s needs. She continued to fed on one side at a time for about 6mths till she grew a bit more.

When Sophie was 4 weeks old I realised she had a tongue tie. Enough to make her tongue a bit heart shaped. This really didn’t seem to affect us. It remained there until she got her bottom teeth at 12 months and cut the frenulum.

So the same age babies in the CNC and 2 very different experiences.

I continued to feed Oliver with no real problems till he and I weaned at 19mths when I was 18wks pregnant. Sophie after a great start had lots of different issues cumulating in breast refusal at 17mths. She completely stopped, going from 5 feeds plus a day to zero.

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Someone Else’s Milk - Steph’s story

Posted on November 4, 2008
Filed under: Cross nursing, Donor milk, Failure to thrive, Low supply, Supplemental nursing system (SNS)

Many women who deal with breastfeeding challenges start having issues in the early days or weeks immediately following their child’s birth. This was not the case for me. Breastfeeding started out well and went smoothly for three months after my son was born. I thought I was in the clear.

At that point, we discovered that he had lost a little weight since his last appointment and we attributed the loss to my poor diet. We improved my diet and, two weeks later, he had gained weight. Two weeks following that, when my son was four months old, I ran into my midwife at a playgroup at our local birth center. She asked to weigh my son to see how he was growing. To our horror, he had lost all the weight he had gained and then some and qualified as Failure to Thrive. He weighed only 12oz more than on the day he was born.

In order to determine whether the problem was my milk or my son’s metabolism, my midwife asked another woman there at the playgroup if she would nurse my son. For the first time in weeks, he ate voraciously for over 30 minutes, which led us to conclude that the problem was my milk. While this was discouraging, it was a huge relief because metabolic disorders are scary ordeals. My midwife told me that we would have to supplement and I was in tears.

Fortunately, I had developed a strong support group during my pregnancy and in the weeks after birth. I had been attending La Leche League meetings and Birth Center gatherings since I was in my second trimester. I called my LLL leader and a couple of other friends and before I knew it a friend arrived with frozen breast milk from several people’s freezer stashes, along with a starter SNS (supplemental nursing system). She also nursed my son while she was there.

My son bounced back quickly on the donor milk. It was very challenging, like being in the newborn days all over again. I nursed him every 90 minutes, day and night. We had to get used to the supplementers, first the starter SNS, then the LactAid system. We had to thaw milk, fill bottles at all hours, wash bottles and supplementers, and carry a cooler with ice packs and extra bags of milk whenever we left the house. These were the kinds of things we thought we would be avoiding by breastfeeding and having me stay home with our son. There were also the confusing emotions and thoughts related to having someone else’s milk nourish my child instead of my own.

I was unable to pump efficiently and we lacked the financial means to purchase milk from a bank. I also was wary of pasteurized donor milk as the pasteurization process eliminates many of the aspects of breast milk that make it the perfect infant food. Gratefully, we were able to find a small numbers of generous local women who had surplus breast milk to donate. Due to their help, my son has never had formula, something I am eternally grateful for.

In the beginning, I wracked my brain trying to figure out what had happened to my milk supply and tried all kinds of herbs and supplements to get it back. However, I quickly stopped because it was a lot of stress, work, and money to try to boost my supply when we were going to keep him on the donor milk until he had doubled his birth weight regardless of my supply.

Three months after he was diagnosed as FTT, my son had an appointment where he weighed in at nearly double his birth weight. I was extremely proud and happy to reach that milestone and finally turned my attention to increasing my milk supply and weaning off of the Lact-Aid supplementer and donor milk.

I ended up taking 5,850 mg of Brewer’s Yeast and 1 tsp Motherlove’s More Milk Special Blend supplement daily. This boosted my milk supply nicely. I approached weaning off the donor milk the same way one would approach actual weaning, focusing on eliminating one feeding with the supplementer at a time until he was getting only my milk. I don’t recall exactly how long this process took, but it was about 3-4 weeks.

Something that had a huge influence on my ability to fully breastfeed my son again was his starting solid foods at around 7 months. We completely followed his lead when it came to starting solids and he was clearly telling us that he wanted them! We skipped pureed foods and he’s been self-feeding fruits, veggies, and meat from the beginning. Had he not started eating other foods when he did, I doubt I would have been able to supply all of his nutritional needs through my breast milk alone.

After it was all over, I was still curious about why this had happened to begin with. I never found a cut and dried answer, but I have my own suspicions. I believe that my poor diet caused my fertility to return prematurely (I got my first post-partum period 11 weeks after my son was born and have been having regular, ovulatory cycles every since). Looking back, the first low weight episode coincided with my first post-partum ovulation. Once my fertility was back, diet alone couldn’t correct the fact that my supply dips drastically at ovulation and during my period. Somewhere in the mix is my hypothyroidism, which I was aware of before becoming pregnant, but blood tests haven’t shown my levels as being abnormal since my son’s birth.

Next month, my son will turn one. As I think back on the past year, I can’t believe we did it. It would have been so easy to give up, and everyone would have understood. Instead, I have an active, mobile, happy near-toddler curled up in my lap to nurse a dozen times a day. I also have a strong motivation to try harder next time so the same thing doesn’t happen again with a future child.

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