breastfeeding

Getting to my goal - Erin’s story

Posted on October 26, 2008
Filed under: Expressing, Flat nipples, Latch problems, Nipple shields, Premature baby

My daughter was born 6 weeks early. I wasn’t prepared for how that would effect my efforts for breastfeeding. I assumed that I would have a normal birth, be able to put her to the breast and maybe have some of the normal difficulties that most mothers experience. I ended up have a c-section and having her whisked away after seeing her briefly and not to see her again till the next day. The nurse that night asked me if I wanted to pump then or in the morning. Not knowing how much it could affect my milk supply I said I would wait till the morning and get one last full nights sleep.

I started pumping the next morning and started off good. But pretty quickly it looked like I wasn’t going to have a large supply. The nurses said oh this person had the same problem but she has 20 bottles in the freezer now. When I was finally allowed to put her to the breast (I think around a week later) I have flat nipples and she had some difficulty latching on. Since she was a preemie they didn’t want her to use to much energy trying so they gave me a shield to use. I continued pumping after every feeding. Then they switched her to a 4 hour feeding schedule instead of 3 hours because she wasn’t drinking much. So not knowing what I know now I thought it would be too difficult to pump every 3 hours and feed her every 4 so I only pumped after her feedings which was every 4 hours. Now I know I probably should have pumped in between at every 2 hours.

She was sent home at two and a half weeks and she was doing good at just over 6 lbs (she was 5lb 1 oz when she was born) . I continued as usual and was even taking an herb recommended for increasing breast milk. I wasn’t told how long I should be doing this and giving her top up with formula or breast milk afterwards. So around 2 or 3 months I decided that I was going to get the breastfeeding thing down and just let her do it and learn how to get more when she was hungry. Sounds a little irrational but you aren’t always thinking straight that soon after a baby when you are sleep deprived. So by doing this she got the breastfeeding down but was crying a lot. I didn’t understand why and she wasn’t gaining weight rapidly but she was gaining. She had seen a pedeitrition and he said she was gaining and doing well but something told me there was more I could do. So around 4 months I got help. She was only about 10 lbs by this time. I finally got the help I needed. I went to see the breastfeeding clinic at the hospital. I was put on medication to increase my breast milk and still taking fenugreek (the herb to increase my breast milk). They weighed her weekly and accessed her feedings. She was weighed before each feeding and weighed afterwards to see how much milk she was getting at one time. Most time she would only get an ounce at a time.

My goal all along was to breastfeed her for a year. I really wanted to do at least that for her. After the medication started working and I no longer had to pump after each feeding, I fed her every 2 hours during the day on my own and every 4 hours during the night. Eventually I didn’t have to set the alarm in the night and I just had to feed her every 2 hours during the day making sure she got at least 8 feedings. So her one year birthday rolls around and I am now comfortably feeding her every 2 hours without pumping unless I wanted to and not having to wake her up through the night. I was use to the way things were and so was she. Neither of us were ready to stop but unfortunately I couldn’t afford the medication any longer and I needed to go back to work financially. So the day after her first birthday I started weaning her. I kept up as many feedings as I could for as long as I could on my own.

I was able to feed her once a day until she was 15 months old. I had reached my goal dispite having to wear a shield the whole time ( I forgot to mention she never did take to my nipple and was very stubborn and liked the shield) pumping, top ups and medication. I was very determined to reach my goal and very proud of myself that I could do that for her. That’s not to say there weren’t times I wanted to give up. I remember around 3 or 4 months when I just couldn’t get her to eat and I knew she was hungry I remember cry and saying to my boyfriend I can’t do it anymore. He point blank told me not to give up and to at least try since this was what I wanted. I could have never done it without his support. There were other babies in the family at the time and my daughter was the only one who was breastfed and my mother never breastfed so I didn’t have support that way. I was only ever around one other person who breastfed before I breastfed my daughter.

Stick to what you believe in no matter what obstacles you encounter. I now have a happy, healthy and very smart 2 year old to thank me. I would do it again in a heartbeat, but hopefully next time I’ll luck out and get a baby who’s a little easier to feed.

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An unexpected ending - Sara’s story

Posted on September 30, 2008
Filed under: Breastfeeding beyond infancy (2 years +), Breastfeeding through pregnancy, Tandem feeding

When I became pregnant when Reid was two years old, I knew that he would need to keep breastfeeding to get him through the rough times ahead. It had already gotten us through so many rough spots, got him back to sleep at night, smoothed over many bumps in the road. Adding another person to our family was such a large step that nursing could be the one constant that he could hold onto. I knew that it was likely that my milk would dry up during pregnancy, and it did at 16 weeks. Reid kept nursing, though, seeming to know that life was about to change and wanting to stay as close to me as possible.

I guess I had noticed that he was asking to nurse less and less often, but I was certain that once the baby was born he would take it up again. I looked forward to tandem nursing, hoping that the closeness to me would help get this emotional little guy through the tough times ahead. I was unprepared, then, when at 7 months pregnant he asked to nurse, then was unable to latch on properly. He tried a few times, then came off sobbing, “I forget how to nurse!” I didn’t know what to do! I held him and tried gently offering ways to help, but my little perfectionist was embarrassed, and wouldn’t try again. He would ask nearly every day to nurse, then when I would say “okay!” he would just cry, “but I can’t remember how!” Eventually he started telling me that he wanted to try when the milk came back.

When our daughter was born when Reid was 2 years 10 months old, he hadn’t nursed in two months. The first few days after she was born (at home) were so hard for him, and I longed to just hold him close and nurse. To somehow show him that the world was not over, that I loved him, that he was still my baby. Once the commotion died down and my mother left, I went with him into our bed to put him to sleep that night. He asked to nurse, but again could not remember how. He just started sobbing, “I want to nurse, I want to be a baby again, I want to stay little” on and on and on. We sat there, both sobbing, with me rocking him in my arms and holding him close. I wanted all of those things more than he could know, but could not give him any of it. That is, so far, the saddest moment of my life.

I had always imagined that I would nurse my babies until they grew into confident little people, and they would slowly move away from it until one day we would both realize that they didn’t need to nurse any longer. I did not expect it to be so traumatic, to feel that I had stolen something from my baby, to want to give back to him that bond we had shared. Our relationship will never be the same, and of course this is largely because he now has a sibling. I will always wonder, in the back of my mind, if it would have been different if he could have nursed until he was ready to stop. Perhaps this IS one natural ending to a nursing relationship—people become pregnant with a second child, the milk dries up, the first child often stops nursing. I just know that my little baby needed more time, and wish that I could give it back to him.

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The best thing I have done! - Alexia’s story

Posted on September 20, 2008
Filed under: Allergy or intolerance to breastmilk, Breast infection, Breast pain, Expressing, Flat nipples, Food allergy, Latch problems, Mastitis, Nipple pain, Nipple shields, Recurrent mastitis, Thrush

Before my son was born I read up on breastfeeding techniques, I went to breastfeeding antenatal classes, and I even asked my obstetrician and a lactation consultant about having flat nipples and if I could do anything to help before my baby was born. Everyone reassured me it would all be fine.

My gorgeous wee man was born at 37 weeks exactly. His suck was excellent despite being early and we tried to feed straight away. During the first few days I had a lot of difficulty latching him and blisters and sores started appearing on my nipples. I was sure this wasn’t right and asked for some help, but everyone said I was doing fine and to continue.

We went home from hospital to have him taking up to 30 minutes to latch at most feeds, him screaming, me with tears running down my face. The pain became more and more at each feed. On about the 7th day I rang my midwife because I just couldn’t do it anymore. She advised me to express to give my nipples a break, so we began expressing all feeds and bottle feeding EBM.

By the next morning (I think) I was shaking all over and nearly collapsed on the floor. Beginning of mastitis bout, number one. This was horrid. I couldn’t do anything apart from sit up in bed to express and eat and drink a bit. Thanks to my mum and husband who were there to bottle feed the expressed milk. I got better, but my nipples were still red raw and there was no way I could latch. So I expressed day and night for another week then began to try relatching him.

This was excruciating! Eventually I managed to get him latched with nipple shields. We both gradually managed to get into a rhythm with feeds and make some progress. He took over an hour to feed each time and it felt like I was doing nothing else!

Now, the pain was still excruciating over this whole time! At every feed it felt like needles and glass were cutting my whole breast throughout the feed. After the feed it felt like acid had been poured on my nipples and I would have severe shooting pains through my breast for hours. Needless to say we didn’t get much sleep! The pain was so bad I couldn’t wear clothing! So I was essentially at home the whole time. I think I bought every single breastfeeding product I could find (shells, shields, creams, pumps etc).

I then managed to get another 2 episodes of mastitis. More pain, more antibiotics. We were still using the nipple shields. But at least I was still feeding!

It took weeks to convince people this pain was not normal. I had been told to just get on with it and it couldn’t possibly hurt that much. FINALLY a lactation consultant suggested I may have thrush.  The thrush took over 6 weeks to cure. I had creams, then weeks of nystatin tablets, nothing worked. I finally got prescribed fluconazole tablets and my pain started to subside.

I finally got all the infections sorted enough to brave weaning from the nipple shields. It took another few weeks of gentle coaxing, tricking, encouraging, along with screaming and tears to teach my baby what that nipple felt like again!

By 12 weeks we were finally managing to feed without nipple shields and with much less pain!!

Then came the saga of an unhappy baby with blood in his poo!! It eventuated he was intolerant to cows milk and I then had to go onto a dairy-free diet. That lasted until he was over one! By about 14 months I could eat small amounts of dairy but he could still only tolerate breast milk. Thank goodness I had managed to feed him!

Anyway, here we are now, coming up to 21 months old. We are still breastfeeding.  My wee guy loves his “milkas” and this mummy feels like she has managed one of the best, but hardest accomplishments in her life!! I love the moments we have together feeding and the wee smiles and giggles looking back up at me! Oh yeah, and we have been pain free for more than a year.

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Self-loathing to love - Sarah’s story

Posted on September 19, 2008
Filed under: Cross nursing, Flat nipples, Large breasts, Latch problems, Nipple shields, Recovering from abuse

Before I became a mother there was one facet of my self-image that never changed: I loathed my breasts. I think the main reason is that they were popular with a sexually abusive relative. I hated handling my own breasts, I liked to pretend they weren’t there. But I had done a lot of reading about the importance of breastfeeding, so even though I wasn’t keen on the idea of handling my own breasts and establishing another relationship with someone who thought my breasts belonged to them, I also knew that I had to give my baby the best start to life that I could, and that meant giving breastfeeding a go, even if it was going to mean confronting the sexual abuse of my past.

I continued to read about the importance of breastfeeding, I hired doulas who had breastfed (one who still was/is), I surrounded myself with the so-called “milk militia” because I knew that if ever I wanted to give up they would give me the push and the support I would need to persevere. Also, hanging out with them and their boobing kiddies helped me to normalise breastfeeding as the done thing, and not be afraid to do it in public myself.

I had planned to do baby-led attachment for our first feed, sit in our birth pool and wait for my bubba to instinctively guide herself to my breast and feed. Unfortunately this did not go to plan, mainly because our birth pool was luke warm when she was born and rapidly cooling, so we didn’t spend as much time relaxing in the pool together as I thought we would.

She made the funniest grunting noises as she lay on my chest and began hunting for my nipple, but when she found it she didn’t latch on. She sniffed and licked, and just generally familiarised herself with my nipple, but didn’t feed. I knew it was important for her to feed in that first hour so I asked my doulas to help me get her to attach. First we got out of the cooling pool and sat on the couch together. My memory of that first feed is hazy, all I really remember was being amazed at the strange new sensation of someone sucking for their life on my breast and the intense contractions that sucking caused in my uterus before our placenta had been born.

For the first two days we were doing beautifully together. Our attachment was pretty much always good, and when it wasn’t I sure knew about it. I could easily tell the difference between “getting used to breastfeeding” discomfort and “not effing attached properly” pain!

My milk came in on day 2/3. I remember sitting on the toilet, leaning forward and covering the tiled floor in white liquid! Over night my breasts changed entirely, and everything my baby and I had learned together so far about feeding went out the window. It was a whole new boob game now.

My breasts had become hard, hot, heavy, enormous, and nipple-less. And my daughter’s tiny mouth could not contend with these new monsters.

My doula came to see how we were going on the afternoon of day 3. I hadn’t been able to feed my daughter for many hours and I was becoming more of an emotional wreck by the minute. My doula spent hours with us attempting to help us get her attached, and to express some milk so my breasts would soften and make it easier for bub to attach. We called the breastfeeding association and got some advice.

She said that by the sounds of it I was big breasted and flat nippled and all we needed was practice and patience. In the meantime she suggested we try using nipple shields, to give my daughter that little bit extra to be able to latch onto. But it was late and the shops had closed so we couldn’t get any.

Eventually we decided the best thing was for my lactating doula to feed my daughter. Although it broke my heart, I was relieved when my doula gave her the feed she needed

My doula and I spent hours attempting to correctly attach a pump to my breast, and we managed to express 40mls over that agonising period. Pumping is still to this day the most painful BFing experience I’ve ever had.

After spending most of her night helping us, our doula went home to her own family and then the hell really began.

That night my baby went for hours with no feed. She cried and when I would try to feed her she would become even more hysterical, screaming and red-faced, and it was hard not to take it personally as she calmed (and sometimes even slept!) on her father.

We spoon fed her the expressed breastmilk we had managed to get while our doula was visiting, but unfortunately we lost a lot of it thanks to the lid on the bottle not being screwed on properly. I watched it spill in slow motion thinking of the hours of pain it took to get that milk out “NOOOOOO!”

I was feeling like a fraud. I felt like I wasn’t really my daughter’s mother because I couldn’t feed her. I tried to be rational about the situation - it was early days, breastfeeding is a skill we have to learn, every individual baby and her mother have to work out their relationship for themselves and that takes time and practice. But thinking rationally didn’t change how devastated I felt. I couldn’t help but feel rejected by my daughter - she had after all happily fed from my doula even though it’s a skill she’s supposedly just learning! Well she mastered it at someone else’s breast!

It hurt so bad to hear her wailing and knowing what she needed but not being able to give it to her on account of my own inexperience. I felt overwhelmed, sad, and guilty. My partner & I took turns at pacing the hallway with a hungry baby in our arms Baby, Mama & Daddy all cried through these hopeless early hours of the morning.

In the morning my doula called to find out how we were going, and I couldn’t beleive it had been less than 12 hours since we’d seen her because I felt like I had lived and died a hundred times since then. I burst into tears. She told me she was worried because it had been a while since my baby had eaten, and the weather forecast promised a very hot day ahead. She said we had to get a lactation consultant’s (LC) hands on help immediately.

She also suggested walking into the local hospital in the hope of getting to see a helpful midwife or nurse. I could think of nothing more stressful than getting my distressed baby and I dressed for the outside world and catching the bus to the hospital. We hadn’t been outside yet, not even out to our own backyard.

I began ringing around to find out about local lactation services. The local hospital put me through to an answering machine message which informed me that their lactation consultancy service was for women who gave birth at that hospital and they are not open everyday! Fat lot of good that was! Then I looked up my local maternal child health care centre and called them, but there was no answer.

While I was rapidly reaching the end of my rope my partner had gone in search of nipple shields. He came home with them and we quickly put them on me and brought a hungry baby to the breast. Miraculously the plastic nipple slid into her little mouth and found its way to the back, to her soft palate! She latched onto me for the first time in 22 hours! And she sucked away furiously!

For the first time since her birth our tears were happy tears. My partner danced on the spot. Our baby’s tummy was filling with delicious booby juice! The worst was behind us.

For the next week my baby fed almost around the clock using nipple shields. I finally understood why all the books, websites and pamphlets I’d read while pregnant stressed that you should get comfortable before you start feeding - those little mother suckers can stay in one feeding position for hours!!!

I remember one of the first nights I was feeding my baby. I was tired and cranky and I really didn’t feel like being touched. I cried as I fed her because the last time I didn’t want to be touched but my breasts got touched anyway was when I was being abused I got over it by talking to my partner, and looking at my baby and thinking about my love for her and how good booby milk is for her. I reminded myself it wasn’t about exploitation with my baby, she needed me for her survival.

Sometimes she’d slip off, sometimes it would be a struggle to get the breast and shield into her mouth - she loved to try and cram her hands in there along with boob! And other times I’d struggle to get her on because she’d grab at my breasts with those little claws and then YEOW she’d dig her sharp nails into my nipple!

As great as it was being able to feed my baby it bugged me that I had to use the shields. I knew using shields longterm could cause problems with my milk supply as a result of the nipple stimulation sensations being dulled. So we arranged a home visit from a lactation consultant to help me learn how to attach my baby to my bare breast.

The LC was helpful with showing me and helping me get my bubba to attach, but I found that what little confidence I had built with breastfeeding was once again undermined as she spoke about weight gain, “dummy sucks”, comfort feeding, and baby sleeping at the breast. Her visit now had me paranoid that despite all the feeding my baby had been doing, and how well I thought we had been going, my baby still wasn’t getting enough milk.

I cried to my partner how simple it would be to switch to formula. He was fantastic. He held both of us when we cried. He reminded me that aside from the minutes when we’re trying to attach we had a very happy baby, and that she is clearly healthy. He reminded me of her frequent wet and dirty nappies, how alert she looks, and how she smiles in her sleep, clearly “dreaming of her mama’s life-giving boobas”. And he reminded me that we are learning together and making great progress every feed, even though it felt like teeny tiny steps. His calm reassurance reminded me that even if our daughter had been predominantly comfort sucking she was still clearly getting enough milk. And comfort is a valid need too!

I still wanted to stop using shields, but I decided to go easy on us. I wasn’t having any supply issues yet, so I took it one feed at a time. Sometimes she would manage to feed bare-breast, but most of the time she needed a shield. Over the passing weeks the ratio of shield to bare breast feeds changed, and eventually we only needed them for lie down feeds. And then one day when she was about eight or nine weeks old I realised that we hadn’t used them at all for a couple of days!

I didn’t realise how far we had come in a matter of weeks until one day I was walking around My partner’s office breastfeeding without a shield as I wandered. Those painful, tearful early days were a distant memory.

These days I not only do I acknowledge the existence of my breasts, I am proud of them. I look at my rapidly growing healthy baby, every podgy roll of skin is a tribute to my life-sustaining breasts

I no longer think of my breasts as belonging to my sexual abuser. I think of them as belonging to my baby and to me, they’re “ours”. I love the hormonal haze I get while breastfeeding, how sleepy it makes bub and I. I love the way we gaze into each other’s eyes dreamily as we breastfeed. Now my breasts make me think of my baby, not abuse.

The everyday realities of breastfeeding have made me get over my self-hatred. I’ve had to learn to handle them all the time and share them with a little person, and it has been immensely rewarding.

Sarah is the author of Ilithyia Inspired, an honest and thought-provoking blog about birth, breastfeeding and motherhood.

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It pays to be persistent - Liz’s story

Posted on September 7, 2008
Filed under: Allergy or intolerance to breastmilk, Breast infection, Breast pain, Breast refusal, Breastfeeding while on medication, Cup feeding, Expressing, Food allergy, Mastitis, Nipple confusion, Nipple pain, Premature baby, Recurrent mastitis, Tandem feeding, Thrush, Twins

I was on bedrest for six weeks during the last part of my pregnancy with Jonah and Owen, and I remember just wishing that they would be born so that I could get up and move around and do things again.  When I think back on that now, it seems so foolish.  If I had it to do over again, I would just lay there all day thinking of how wonderful it would be to have two full-term babies. 

I was having ultrasounds twice weekly because the doctors were very worried about twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, a dangerous complication that happens sometimes with identical twins.  I drove to one of my Thursday ultrasounds, thinking that it would be more of the same: they are still different in size and very small, so you should lay around and do nothing all day.  Instead, they took a very long time to do the ultrasound, and when the doctor came in afterwards to give me the report, the first thing he said was, “So we have you scheduled for a c-section at 7:30 tomorrow morning.”  I was shocked!  I was only 35 weeks pregnant, and not feeling ready for the twins to be born.  But they had measured the blood flow from the placenta, and felt that Baby B, the smaller twin, was not getting enough oxygen and nutrients.  So it was time for them to come out.  Both babies were breech, and the doctors refused to allow me to even attempt a vaginal birth.  They told me that at 35 weeks, the babies should be healthy enough to come  home within a few days, and that “they might have to spend a day or two in the NICU, but it’s no big deal.”  I can’t believe they told me that!  And I can’t believe I bought it!

So the next morning, Jonah and Owen were born by C-section at 8:17 and 8:18 in the morning.  They were not breathing very well, so the nurses whisked them off to the NICU with nothing more than a quick wave to me.  My husband went off with them, and I was sent up to recovery.  It was so strange to be in the labor and delivery ward of the hospital with no babies.  I could hear babies crying in neighboring rooms, and I ached to be holding my two little ones.  When I went to see them in the NICU, they had their faces covered (for minimal stimulation), and were positively covered in wires and tubes and monitors.  We were not allowed to touch them or even talk to them above a whisper that first day, and the news just kept getting worse and worse.  I will never forget the moment when the doctor said to me about Owen, “Well, we don’t have many more tricks up our sleeve.  If he doesn’t respond to the Nitric, we’re going to have to call Boston.”  Both babies had severe respiratory distress syndrome, and they didn’t respond to hardly any of the treatments for the first 24 hours.

Meanwhile, I was pumping and trying to build my supply so that I could nurse them when they were strong enough.  At first, we were adamant that they not have pacifiers or bottles, but when the nurses said that bottle-fed babies go home sooner, I gave in.  It was two days before they even were able to have the first drops of colostrum swabbed on their gums.  Slowly, they started to be able to take little bits of my milk from a bottle nipple, once they were off the ventilators.  It was five days before we got to hold Jonah, the stronger of the two.  I kept asking when I could nurse them, but the nurses told me that it would make their oxygen levels drop, and they had to be on a certain type of ventilator, and all kinds of other excuses. 

I had plenty of milk, and I was pumping every 3 hours around the clock to build a supply for my little guys.  The hospital finally told me to store it at home in our freezer because theirs was full! 

But we still weren’t nursing.  Jonah was in the hospital for 2 weeks, and I nursed him 3 times before he came home.  Owen was in for 3 weeks, and I only nursed him once while he was there.   Once Jonah came home, we worked really hard to get him latched on and nursing.  He was getting stronger every day, but it was so hard to nurse him (he would nurse for an hour every feeding), then offer him a bottle of milk so that we could be sure he was getting enough, then pump so we would have milk to offer.  And I tried to go to the hospital every day to visit Owen, who was still there.  It was insanity! 

And it only got crazier when Owen finally came home.  We nursed every single feeding because I was so determined to get them on the breast.  And it was the same routine: nurse, bottle, pump.  All day and all night.  Owen had to have some special high-calorie formula that we mixed with breastmilk instead of water, because he wasn’t gaining weight very well. 

And when Owen came home, I started having excruciating nipple pain.  It felt like broken glass was coming out of my breasts at every feeding.  My husband would come home and find me nursing the boys and sobbing.  I started taking painkillers just to be able to feed them, because I refused to switch to formula.  Our doula told us that it was almost definitely thrush, so I went and got checked out by my doctor.  She told me that the boys’ latch looked good, and it probably was thrush, but she wouldn’t treat me unless their pediatrician also treated them.  Their pediatrician then told me that he wouldn’t treat them unless I was also being treated.  It took me three days to finally convince them that someone had to write the prescription first.  And so we all took nystatin, which did nothing for two weeks.   Then, my doctor switched me to Diflucan, and we used gentian violet along with it.  And, even though everything in our house was purple for a week from the gentian violet, it worked! 

We had four glorious, pain-free days of nursing before the pain returned.  And so I went nuts.  I read everything I could get my hands on about yeast.  I became the Hygiene Nazi, treating everything that touched breastmilk as though it were toxic waste.  We put vinegar on everything, and used grapefruit seed extract and gentian violet, and many courses of Diflucan.  Nothing worked. 

So I was in immense pain all the time, but we finally did get the boys solely on the breast, with no bottles at all.  What a triumph!  I wish I remembered more of it, but I spent so much time in a haze of pain that it all seems like such a blur to me.

Finally, six weeks after the pain returned, a lactation consultant at the support group I was going to said, “maybe it’s not yeast.”  The thought had never occurred to me (or, apparently, to my doctor).  So I went to the doctor and insisted that she culture my breastmilk, although she didn’t think it was necessary.  It’s a good thing we did, because it turned out that I didn’t have yeast at all; instead, I had a raging staph infection in my nipples. 

She put me on dicloxacillin, which didn’t make me feel better and gave me an allergic reaction.  When I told the doctor that I was still having pain, she told me she was just going to prescribe another course of Diflucan, because it was probably just yeast from the antibiotics.  I would not take any more meds without being cultured, so I insisted that they wait and do another culture.  And it’s a good thing, because it turned out that the staph was MRSA, a medicine-resistant form of staph. 

The doctor put me on Levaquin, another antibiotic that the culture indicated would work, but told me that I couldn’t nurse while I was on it.  And then told me that I could.  I asked our pediatrician who told me it was fine, and then another doctor in his practice said it was absolutely not.  I kept asking doctors, and kept getting conflicting answers.  Finally, I decided that I wouldn’t risk the health of my two boys who had already been so sick, and I decided that I would formula feed them for the fourteen days while I was medicated, and just pump.  I had to go stay with my parents so that they could help with the logistics of managing and feeding two babies and pumping.  After 24 hours of having the boys reject the bottles and then, finally, gulp down the formula and spit it all back up, I decided that I couldn’t do it.  I did a lot more research, and found some information saying that it was probably all right for me to nurse while I was on the Levaquin.  I still was wary of it, so I decided to nurse every other feeding, so at least they would still get the benefits of breastmilk, and any harmful effects from the medicine would be limited.  It was a disaster.  They had a lot of trouble keeping the formula down, and my supply dropped because the pump was not getting as much as the babies normally did. 

But the medicine was working!  By the end of the fourteen-day course, I was pain-free again.  And once I was done with it, I started nursing the boys for every feeding again, and trying desperately to build my milk supply back up. 

Unfortunately, the pain came back after only four days.  I had another two cultures done, because I wanted to make sure we were treating the right problem.  I was afraid that we had yeast again from the antibiotics.  But both cultures came back negative.  I was at my wits’ end.  I couldn’t understand why I was still in so much pain.  I went to my doctor, who told me that she just couldn’t understand it either.  She said that our latch looked good, so I probably just needed some time to heal up.  She told me to pump and bottle feed the boys for a week to let myself heal.  “No nursing for at least a week!”, she told me.  This didn’t sound quite right to me, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I tried it.  Again, it was a disaster.  My breasts no longer would let down for the pump.  I would pump for 20 minutes and get only an ounce of milk.  Needless to say, my supply plummeted.  We had to supplement the boys with formula, which they again had trouble keeping down.  I went against my doctor’s advice and nursed them once a day, in the evening, just to make sure they would go back to the breast after a week. 

After 4 days, they rejected the breast completely.  Every time I tried to nurse them, they would scream as if they were being terribly hurt.  It was horrible.  They had decided that the bottle was much easier, and they didn’t want to nurse anymore.  I stopped all bottles immediately, and we cup-fed them to make sure they were getting enough to eat.  They still refused the breast, and cried all day and all night.

I was completely at the end of my rope.  Friends and family were telling me to just give up and switch to formula, but I felt like I didn’t know how to be a mom without nursing.  It was so important to me, and I felt like Jonah and Owen really needed it, that I refused to quit.  I cried and cried and spent hours and hours researching on the internet.  Finally, even though we didn’t have the money, I bit the bullet and paid for a private lactation consultant to come out to the house and consult with us. 

She will forever be an angel in my mind.  In the space of about 15 minutes, she had diagnosed and then fixed our latch problem.  I felt so foolish that I had been ‘doing it wrong’ for four months!  As for the nipple confusion, she said to just keep doing what we were doing, and that now that they had a better latch, it would be easier for them to get milk from the breast.  Within a few days, my supply was back up, the boys were nursing like pros, and I was pain-free!  I can’t believe it was so easy after all that pain.  I had been told by two other lactation consultants, my doctor, and the boys’ pediatrician that our latch was very good. 

c l u e: Images abound

It was beautiful to nurse without having it make my toes curl in pain!  I was thrilled, but the boys were not happy babies.  They were covered in rashes, and spitting up constantly, and too uncomfortable to sleep, ever.  We were all exhausted, and I did more research.  Although my doctor told me that what I ate wouldn’t affect the boys, I thought that something I ate might be bothering them.  I cut dairy out of my diet for two weeks, and they got much better, and then worse again.  I decided to do the Dr. Sears total elimination diet.

So for two weeks, I ate nothing but rice, millet, summer squash, turkey, sweet potatoes, and pears.  I was ridiculously hungry and lost a twenty pounds, but it helped a lot.  The boys’ rashes disappeared, they stopped spitting up entirely, and they started sleeping longer stretches at night.  They seemed much happier. 

After a couple of months, we figured out that they were reacting to dairy and soy in my diet, which explains why they always had so much trouble with the cows’ milk formula.    So now I eat anything but dairy and soy.  Now that the boys are a year old, I am able to eat a little bit of cheese once in a while.

One day, when the boys were 7 months old, I noticed that my nipples were getting sore again.  We had started nursing in some new positions, so I just monitored their latches closely, hoping it would go away.  It didn’t, and one day I woke up to find that one of my breasts was red and hot.  I had had this for months before, and I figured it would go away, but later that day I started to feel hot and really tired.  Before long, I had chills and was in really bad shape.  I figured out that I had mastitis, and was put on antibiotics.  Within a day, I was feeling better and I thought that was the end of it.  Unfortunately, I had it again as soon as the antibiotics ran out.  The same thing happened twice more, and I ended up with three courses of antibiotics within 8 weeks.  I was sick from the antibiotics and worried about taking to many meds, especially because I was also on Diflucan so that I wouldn’t get thrush from all of the antibiotics.  The fourth time that I woke up with a red breast, I decided to give it 24 hours and see what happened, as long as I didn’t get a fever.  I kept a heat pad on my breast all day and after every feeding I swabbed my nipple with grapefruit seed extract, let it dry, and applied Bactrim and a clean nursing pad.  After 24 hours, the inflammation was gone!  

Still, five months later, this happens about once a week, but it always goes away with heat and super hygiene.  I had given up on it until recently, when a friend sent me a video about something called inflammatory breast cancer.  I was scared into getting some answers, and will be seeing a breast health specialist this month and getting a mammogram and an ultrasound.  So far, no one has been able to give me any answers, but I’m hopeful that we will figure this out.

Our nursing relationship has been worth every bit of trouble.  It has been amazing to watch my boys grow from two tiny, sick, skinny babies into happy, healthy, chubby mama’s boys.  They will be a year old this month, and they are complete milk monsters.  Their first baby sign was the sign for milk.  They don’t even know what to do with a bottle.  Aside from the disastrous (and, thankfully, occasional) formula, they were exclusively breastfed for 7 months, when they started solid foods. 

I think we have made it this far on sheer determination, but I hope the next year will be easier; my initial goal was a year of nursing, but now I think we’ll do two!

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