My second son was born at home, and from the first feed was very interested in his hands, and not so interested in the breast. Once he sussed out stuff comes out of the breast he was much more into breastfeeding. The first couple of days are a blur of pain and recovery, but by the end of the first week I was beginning to feel there was something not quite right. I asked myself if maybe it was postnatal depression, but that didn’t sit right. I was actually elated to have birthed at home and to have had such a great experience. Maybe I was coming down from that high? I wasn’t sure. At first the bad feelings were like an intuition, that something really bad was about to happen. There was nothing I could put my finger on, but I had been trying so hard to tune into my intuition over the final weeks of pregnancy and during labour, I thought I was somehow now psychic and that bad things were about to happen to me, the kids, my husband, the house. Once I even hobbled out of bed to check my older son, not really sure why, but so sure that something was wrong. He was fine. I noticed it more in the evenings, but never associated it with the cluster feeding of that time of day. After a few days I could see that the feelings never lasted long so I would tell myself everything was fine, would list off my (small) achievements for the day, list off the supportive people in my life, then all of sudden I would be fine again. I would congratulate myself on pulling myself together and getting through the bad feelings. But soon they would be back.

After 2 or 3 weeks, when I was able to sit on a chair again, I began to catch up on emails. There was one on a breastfeeding email group that mentioned a newly named condition that left women feeling yuck just before their milk let down. It was a brief description, but enough for me to start to think that it sounded familiar. It seemed right, bad feelings you can’t quite put your finger on, just before the milk lets down. I hadn’t made that link but over the next day, I realised it was happening just as I sat down to feed. I had put that down to the fact that that was the only time I had to listen to my thoughts and that’s why I noticed it during feeding. But when I focused on it, I was quite sure it was only happening right at the beginning and then sometimes later in the feed, and the feelings went away in less than a minute, even if I didn’t do any positive self talk or distraction. A month or so later, it was mentioned again on the email group, and a link was included to a whole website about this. I followed the link to  http://www.d-mer.org/ and read through the site, and had one of those moments where you realise you’re not crazy and you’re not alone. A great moment for anyone, but especially for a mum of a young baby trying to get her shit together to heal from a long labour and to parent 2 children. Here was a site that listed off all the symptoms I had noticed. The word that stood out for me was dread. That summed up my feelings. Other things that stood out for me were an urge to get away, a sensation of a pit/hollowness in the stomach, self-disgust and a fear of having failed. These were not emotions I was feeling during every day life. Far from it! It is not the same as the aversion I felt to feeding through pregnancy, or the nausea I had with let down then. This is something so different to my first feeding experience. Where I used to feel elation and love and bonding I feel yuck and hollow and dread. I can see why so many women would give up on breastfeeding. I didn’t have any other problems, and the baby fed fine and quickly. If you didn’t know the importance of breastfeeding, or how wonderful it can be, the feelings are so intense early on that it would easily put you off.

Now my son is nearly 4 months old and the feelings are easing. I often only notice the bad feelings when I am alone or am consciously trying to notice if they are still there. Mostly I can ignore it now. Once my older son pretended to throw something at me right as the feelings were starting. I over reacted in the most frightening way-not towards him-but my own feelings inside, my heart was racing like someone had pointed a gun at me, I was petrified. But it’s over so fast that often now I don’t notice it at all.

If I had have come across the website with only my first breastfeeding experience to compare it to, I never would have understood what the women were on about. It just doesn’t make sense. But now… I am so grateful that someone has been able to put into words what happens to me. I hope more women are able to learn about this, to see that it is common, and that it does often fade given time.

The condition Michelle experiences is known as dysphoric milk ejection reflex  or D-MER. Information and support can be found at D-MER.org.