Anyone else give up breastfeeding as a result of poor postnatal care?

[ElieRM]

Hi,
DD is 7 wks and thriving. All through my pregnancy I was determined to breastfeed, wanted to express all feeds when I returned to studying, determined she'd have nothing but breast milk til we started weaning.
Had a reletively easy labour although I gave birth when the labour ward was packed (closed 2 days after dd was born!) Was shown very briefly how to latch her on in the delivery room, although was still unsure. When I reached the postntal ward, was struggling to latch her on. Asked a MW for help,she snapped at me that DD had a dirty nappy, to change her and then she'd latch on. An hour later, still no success so asked a second MW.She didn't speak at all, just grabbed DDs head and shoved her on my breast.
As a first time mum, I assumed she was then latched on properly. Endured bleeding nipples as assumed it was normal. DD would only ever feed for a few minutes before falling asleep, let down relfex didn't kick in and after day 3 when milk came in never suffered engorgement or discomfort due to lack of milk. When DD was weighed at 10 days she had gained no weight at all. Was told by HV to feed every two hours and express straight after whether DD was hungry or not and leave her to cry rest of time. Managed 6 hours of this as my mum was with me, but when she left to go home DP was still at work and DD refused to be put down, was screaming with hunger so it became impossible.
Took the very difficult decision to put her on formula, felt guilty and still miss bf terribly.
Do you think if we'd been given more adequete support from the begging BF would have been possible? Or just one of those things?

[lara27]

Sorry to hear you had a bad time with support in the hospital, I do think that if you'd had proper support it would have been different. In the first couple of days I had difficulty getting ds to latch on and when he did he kept falling asleep but I was lucky that the ward was quite quiet when I was in and the breastfeeding specialist spent a lot of time sitting with me helping me and showing me how to get him latched on properly -and how to keep him awake. Since then it has all gone pretty well but I may well have had to give up if I hadn't had the initial support. You shouldn't feel guilty though, you did what was best for your dd at the time by switching to formula and now as you say she is thriving which is great

[BertieBotts]

Wow, I am amazed you fed her for 10 days under such conditions - you will have made a difference, so don't feel guilty at all. That really sounds like appalling support.

[Jammybodger]

I am sad that women think it is all or nothing with bfeeding as that is what they are told. I bfed 4 babies but used formula to supplement my own milk esp. in eves when supply was diminished. It did not mess up my own milk supply and it enabled me to enjoy bfeeding knowing that the formula would act as a top up if the baby needed it.

So I was able to bfeed each baby for a year or more under no pressure. I'm so sorry you did not get the support you needed. A thriving, happy baby is the most important thing and you have achieved that so don't be hard on yourself.