to ask you to STOP using these unhelpful phrases?

[StopCallingMeTeresa]

i apologise if this turns into an essay, but...

"Supply equals demand"
or
(worse) "low milk supply is actually quite rare so probably not your problem"

I've just read yet another MN thread where someone said the 2nd one (basically suggesting that a poster with suspected low milk supply probably wasn't in the "tiny tiny" %age of women who don't produce enough milk). It fucks me right off to keep reading this nonsense on here and other breastfeeding support groups/forums because it makes women feel like their actions or perception of low milk supply are the cause... rather than a genuine medical issue which might never be fixed. If a man had erectile dysfunction caused by a non-mental health issue, would we tell him that the problem wasn't a real problem if only he'd try the right thing, mentally?

Personally, this is (obviously) an upsetting issue. I'm 2 months PP and have low milk supply; as in, I produce about 5ml per 1hr pumping session, and I can get about 30ml on an entire day's worth of hours and hours of being hooked up to a pump inbetween breastfeeds.

My baby was delivered and within 48hrs lost so much weight he was admitted into NICU for monitoring. He was shrieking with hunger when he wasn't latched on, whcih was hours and hours of every day - i got about 3hrs of sleep in the first three days of his life, after which i was pretty much told he was in such a risky position we HAD to start supplementing with formula. My baby was literally starving.

• I'm on domperidone to increase milk supply (dr is talking about stopping it now as it has had no affect).
• I've spent every day of his life on a double hospital grade pump.
• Oatmeal breakfasts, flapjacks to inrease milk. I feel sick thinking about oats these days i'm so sick of them.
• I've taken fistfuls and handfuls of supplements every day: goat's rue to develop milk ducts, fenugreek, brewer's yeast, you name it, for 2 solid months.
• I've tackled slow let down by doing extreme skin to skin kangaroo style care the last few weeks; I listen to relaxing music whilst feeding and pumping, smelling my baby and looking at him/pictures of him.

His latch has been checked. No tongue tie.

• I've done about 4 feeding "resets" where I sat in bed and did nothing but skin to skin and feed for 3 days straight while my boyfriend and mum ran around doing everything else.
• i've had other stuff like bottle feed technique checked at my local LLL group, as well as the health visitor.
• GP has checked my thyroid and prolactin levels twice now - all normal.
• We've done a weighted feed at the local support group but i'm simply not producing anywhere near normal levels of breastmilk.

There's NOTHING i can do now to ever exclusively breastfeed as intended. i simply don't produce enough milk for some reason.

... and yet i keep reading on here especially that "low milk supply is rare" (no scientific source or attributation, of course!) and "supply=demand", just like all the other lies i was told at the antenatal group about breastfeeing.

can i ask you to consider the impact on women like me the next time you are writing something like that?

by washing over what is a genuinely distressing problem as if it weren't a real problem, it doesn't contribute towards good maternal mental health and suggests it can be fixed.

sometimes, it can't.

and now i'm trying to accept that it's ok. but then i read BF support threads on here with misleading / ambiguous phrases like that and i struggle.

It's a tough one. My daughter was tube fed for 3 weeks before she was able to latch. I pumped and pumped around the clock from 3 days post birth. I think the pumping around the clock on a hospital grade pump, on full power for 20 mins every two hours gave me a massive supply. Now others will say that it was dangerous to pump on the high setting but it worked for me. I could pump 200ml from both breasts and had a freezer stashed with frozen milk.

I don't know if my supply would have been so strong without the routine I made for my self, a routine that I wouldn't have been able to keep up if my baby was able to breastfeed.

I often see people write "what you pump is no indication of your supply" but in my experience it must be! So I can believe it when people say they have a low supply. But the devil on my shoulder thinks that 99% of the time it's used as an excuse. That's based on my experience, it doesn't make it fact!

Why have you made your life soooo stressful when it didn’t need be.
I’ve had 4 ,I tried to breast feed ,no milk ,doctor said give formula so I did.
Each time same with each child.
I did my best ,not my fault ,kids got fed ,all in their 20s now and 6 foot.
So it didn’t do them any harm.
So yes you are being unreasonable to put yourself through all that stress ,and to care what others think.cut yourself some slack x

Trying to control how other people post is the fast way to tripling your stress levels, and is doomed to fail.

Deal with unhelpful comments on the thread, not by starting (yet another) thread slating MNetters as being horrible

(Yes, this might be your first, but it's a very common theme, and includes a troll who was widely believed to be attempting to discredit women's voices by stating his awful we all are)

Hi OP

It's clear you have done everything possible in your power, and more, to try and sort this, and nature can be cruel. And I'm sorry you feel like people are trying to minimise what you've gone through.

However a lot of people are very misinformed about breastfeeding and say things like 'I dont think I am producing any as I'm not leaking any more' and 'my supply must be low as when I pump I get nothing (ignoring the fact that the baby is gaining weight etc and clearly getting enough when feeding directly from the breast). The comments you refer to are usually in response to these situations.

Again I'm sorry and can see you genuinely dont produce enough milk. However you are just one person so it doesnt mean just because it happened to you that it isn't still rare if that makes sense. So I did vote YABU, not because I dont sympathise and see where you're coming from but because for me, you can only say people are wrong about it being rare, if you've done a proper wide scale study and found this not to be the case

YANBU.

Not being unable to breastfeed has made me hate my baby. Just when I feel like I’m getting past not being able to breastfeed, I stupidly click on a MN thread on it and read some BS sprouted and then I get those feeling of dislike again towards my baby.

What MorrisZapp posted.

@StopCallingMeTeresa

Has anyone suggested a supplemental nursing system? A friend of mine had supply issues but ended up breastfeeding well into toddlerhood with a SNS.

you are a hero. Be kind to yourself. I had my own feeding battle - not as rough as yours but 5 months of no latch and exclusive expressing. I am mighty proud of what I did and what I put myself through but I wouldn't do it again. It should be easier to weigh up the pros and cons but it's such an emotive thing. I was so determined to do it prioritising it over sleep, sanity and enjoying my time with my new baby. I have gone of topic so to bring it back YANBU - it's insensitive and frustrating. You have done amazing.

YABU
I AM in the very rare 2% - I have breast hypoplasia. Have you looked into that?
It IS very rare. Women shouldn't give up too quickly because they think they have low supply, if what they want is to breastfeed.

You are 100% not being unreasonable.

I was induced and lost pints of blood when ds was born, my iron was in my boots. My milk took nearly a week to come in and ds's blood sugar was low so he needed formula top ups whilst we were still in hospital. No amount of demand was going to get my supply high enough.

It did effect my mental health and I really struggled to get over the guilt of not breastfeeding. Rhetoric like this didn't help in the slightest.

If it’s 1 or 2 per cent, that’s actually not that rare at all. That’s 1 women in 50, or 60 or so women of the 3000+ who give birth in our local maternity unit every year. That’s one a week.

Your post reads like you're carrying a lot of guilt over this. Don't. My son was formula fed from a young age and you cant tell the difference between him and his bf peers.

I have 5 kids, breastfed 3, and I honestly think people need to- women need to- get over how babies are fed and how they react. I fed mine differently for different reasons, had negative feedback for both, frankly as a mother I needed some resilience. You need to be able to cope with minor or perceived slights against you. The world cannot be altered so it fits you perfectly and you need to accept that.

I don’t say this to be unkind, I say it because if you can’t you’ll have a shit time of motherhood. Everything you do is open to comment, you need some inner confidence. We shouldn’t be in a mental space where random weirdos or Internet forums control our emotions, and if we are we need to proactively sort that out. You are in that 1%, it’s not fair but frankly you didn’t have to go through all you did. Bottle feed if need be. One I bottle fed due to prematurely and struggling with my own medical issue, it was right.

Every single day of motherhood I make decisions that others will disapprove of. I need to understand that for the most part that is natural. I’m not being shamed in the street mostly with screaming insults, it’s just silly comments and looks from people different to me. Hey I judge some people too, doesn’t make them lesser than me in reality.

To the later who says bf made her dislike her baby- please ask your GP about PND. That’s not the reaction of a healthy mind

I've spent every day of his life on a double hospital grade pump I had some significant issues with dc1 getting them to breastfeed, and went through some dramas in the early days, and my understanding (and my experience) is that while you are pumping - even using one of the fabulous hospital pumps - and while you are giving your baby supplementary feeds, you will not be producing enough.

If you wanted to, you could try just breastfeeding, no pump, no supplementary feed for baby - keeping an eye on weight obviously though there might be a small dip at first - I did it and it transformed feeding, and dc were exclusively breastfed to 6 months in the end - after a very poor start.

I would recommend eating lots and lots of food that you love and ditch the supplements and oats and medicine. I usually avoid cakes but indulged during those periods!

If not - I empathise as the early days were awful, and out of the 15 or so nurses and midwives I got advice from re breastfeeding in the first ten days or so, only one gave decent advice which worked in the end.

6 months pp and I still struggle with the fact I had to give up on bf, my baby was shooting rapidly down through the centiles, despite having her tongue tie snipped at 4 weeks, and feeding her round the clock. I keep wondering why it didn't work, but then I look back at photos of my baby when she was so so thin and know it was the best for her to be ff. I still feel like I have to justify it to people.

More than anything I think I hate it when all emphasis is placed on the women 'choosing' to ff. For all the women I know who ff, and for myself, it didn't feel like that much of a choice at all really.

People are weird about BF. Possibly I was too, back when it seemed to matter. One day it won’t, OP - to you or to your baby. Same to anyone else struggling whether it’s low supply or over supply or perceived difficulties or latch problems or tongue tie or reflux or any of the other million things that can make the mother/baby dyad more tricky than it seems.

OP, directly to you - We in this house have done cup feeding, syringe feeding, manual and electric breast pumps (two kinds), supplementary nursing system, formula supplementation, donated milk, domperidone, tongue tie snip, oats, lactation cookies, fenugreek, skin to skin, biological nurturing. We’ve done large weight loss and hospitalisation and blood tests and lumbar punctures. Everything was shit when the baby was eight weeks old, like yours. Everything was stressful and everything was shit. But fast forward another two months, and the baby was fully breastfed. In case you think I’m some bonkers BF advocate, I’m not - I’ve also exclusively formula fed a baby by choice. But sometimes things change and people are often only relating their own experiences, as you do yours. We all know that many mothers struggle and are given incorrect information and inadequate support. Quoting percentages is many people’s way to counter the misinformation that is around - which can benefit no-one. Not the people struggling or the people sailing through, no-one.

I hope you and your baby thrive whatever you eat.

YABU but you're entitled to be - you feel raw and emotional and it's normal.
But those statements are correct. Even if you are amongst the minority it remains true that it is a minority although saying 'it's probably not your problem' is not helpful I agree.
You seem to have tried everything. Don't feel guilty.
Having said that - pumping is not a good way to assess your milk production and your milk would not have come in properly at 2 days so maybe there was something else going on? God knows but you have tried your best so just focus on getting stronger for your baby.

Thank you all. I'm sitting here crying holding bubs reading this.

I've heard of the breast duct issues mentioned, insufficient glandular tissue (igt) by way of an American support forum. My GP hadn't heard of it when I asked during him checking my thyroid levels, but he looked it up then - since there's no fix, he didn't seem to know what to advise.

I'm formula feeding my baby still (along with bf for the 5ml he can get now and then), plus using the pump for a few hrs a day to build up a feed every couple of weeks, I freeze it and then take a picture to remind myself of the reason I'm doing it every day, but it's hard.

I wish I'd known how hard it was going to be

I also empathise with the pp who said it's hurt her Bonding... Trying to bf like this has been the 1 and only negative bonding impact.. I love my baby but tbh there have been some really dark nights in the early hrs of the morning, feeding him then getting on the pump for 30min when I know he'll be up in 2hrs for more bf &forumla, to the point where I think I may be spiralling into ppd. So I'm trying to accept... But I'm so angry about my experience!!

I never talk in RL about the first 6 weeks of my DD's life hypogalactia made both our lives a misery. My health visitor told me it's genetic when I asked my mum she broke down and cried she had been told never to tell her daughters that she had not been able to feed them as she must not project her failure on to her daughters.
15 years later the BF evangelists still make me tearful.
Two generations mentally scarred.

So you are the 1%. That's sad for you. Should that mean no one tries to help the many many women who think they have low supply when they haven't?

I agree with this.
OP - I’m so sorry you’re having these issues I really am. And to you.
But we also can’t go round telling every woman who struggles to BF that she has low supply when it is highly likely that isn’t the issue - not impossible... just highly likely.

I'm sorry you have had such a difficult time, and clearly you are one of the women who has low supply. I also suspect that it is more than 1% of women who have it.

BUT I will not stop supporting women who are trying to successfully breastfeed. This often means telling them that their supply is PROBABLY fine, and describing behaviors of newborns that they believe show low supply when in fact they are totally normal, to be expected and necessary. I also will not stop telling them that demand increases supply and to keep putting baby to breast. Because for most women this is true!

So whilst I understand that you have been through a really hard time, you are one of the rare ones - I have met other women who genuinely have low supply but I have met many, many, many more women who thought they had low supply but were experiencing normal supply and normal newborn behaviours and who with support and advice have gone on to succesfully breastfeed.

You just bought back a memory of when I had my premature baby only to produce a tiny amount of milk despite using an "milking machine " for 3 months . when I did manage to feed the baby it was minute.

My Fil asked one day when the baby would be coming home and I said when the feeding is sorted - he replied " just get on with it - breast feeding is the easiest thing in the world" Still to this day I don't know how I did not land him one ( I did lay into him verbally though )

What made me feel better later was I found out my nan could not breast feed either so my mum was actually fed on carnation milk! - She is 85 now (: no ill effects.

YANBU

I had 3 dc and never produced a ml of milk, didn't engorge with any of my babies.

My mum also didn't produce milk either.

All are very fit and healthy, at 15,12 and 10 I don't think all have been to the doctor more then 10 times including vaccines.

apparently I am in the 0.5% ? who epidurals don't work on either - I did try telling the hospital on my second birth - guess what they did not believe me .

Completely agree. My baby juuuust about got enough from me, but looking, only slept for more than 20 mins after formula. He was hungry. I think my tense anti-bottle top ups put him off bottles completely - he stopped taking them and I had a miserable baby until he weaned. I remember crying when my friends talked about soaked bras and milky bedsheets - I never had to use a breast pad! Gosh I would have been excited if any milk had leaked out! Oh, abd Fenugreek repeats on me horribly