breastfeeding cave women! help me to understand please

[Giddyup]

I am unsure how to word this as I really don't want it to become a BF/FF bunfight. I breastfed DS for 4 months and it was one of the most awful times of my life. It completely domiated our relationship and not in a good way! At the time I thought this was something pretty unique to me and not seemingly fairly common. I curently have 2 friends really struggling with BF, one with a newborn and one with a 6 week old.

I am 30 weeks pregnant and going to breastfeed again, and am really, really hoping it will work well this time. Last time I had no problems with supply but every feed was agonising, I went to support groups, had visits from a BF counselor, asked every midwife I saw to take a look and nobody could see anything wrong.

How many people found BF a doddle? if you had probs how long did they last/did you stick it out for?

I just don't understand how the human race didn't just die out thousands of years ago? How have people put up with the agony throughout history? or has something changed and we now find it hard when before we didn't? Sorry for the brain dump I just don't get it! Surely the most natural thing in the world should be the easiest thing in the world?

I found ds difficult to feed but I'd never seen any breastfeeding before, thought you just stuck them on, gave formula in the hospital on advice of midwives as he needed it being a big baby. It was only when I came home and got proper advice from a la leche counsellor did it come okay and bf him till 4.

Dd - no problems at all. She was also big and I was advised to give formula to supplement in the hospital. Fortunately I knew they were talkign crap this time, ignored hospital advice and fed her till 3.

Somewhere along the line you were not given correct support and advice.

I had zero problems with number 1, heaps of trouble with number 2. I used to yelp when she latched on while my MW sat there looking sympathetic and telling me to use my labour breathing! Turned out me and DD2 had thrush so once that fixed it got better, although she is quite bitey when she feeds (has a small mouth which she didn't open very wide too) and so often (still, at 10 months) it is a bit like my nipple is caught in a clamp whereas I never really noticed DD1 feeding.

I firmly believe that BF is not supposed to be agony although I can see that with some babies it can take months to get right. I hated it for the first 4 months with DD2 and it was only the experience I had had of "nice" breastfeeding (and the fact that to me BF is utterly normal while ff is a bit odd, since I only remember my mum bf) that kept me going.

People stuck with it historically because they had nothing else to feed their babies, and the urge to nourish a baby and keep her alive generally overrides cracked nipple pain! Either that or they hired a wet nurse...

Giddyup Basically, because it shouldn't hurt! For most women who breastfeed for any length of time it's totally painless. There are a umber of reasons why feeding your son hurt, and to figure them out would take time and specialist help, sadly, this kind of expertise is not always readily available. I was at our local Baby Cafe a while ago and the BF SUpporter there was still teaching the cross cradle hold to a new mum with a wriggly thrashing newborn. I so desperately wanted to take over and show the mum a more relaxed Biological Nurturing style but I am not the "official" expert, ad it would have been very rude of me to do so. I'm by no means an expert, but I'm up to date with all the new research (just because I make sure I am) and this lady clearly wasn't, yet she was there in the capacity of "expert". Do you see my point?

Was he checked for tongue tie? Were you also using a dummy? Giving regular supplementary feeds? All these things can make breastfeeding painful because they can bugger up the way baby latches. Did you have thrush? That can make feeding excruciating, I know from bitter experience!

As for how cavewomen managed to breastfeed, well, they will have grown up around newborns, they will have seen countless relatives breastfeeding, it would have been utterly normal for them, they would have carried their baby with them all the time, fed them pretty much constantly for the first few weeks, possibly even had help from a friend or relative who wet nursed now and then, (in some cultures even today colostrum is considered bay for a new baby [weirdly] and until the new mums milk comes in the baby is nursed by an aunty or friend, so baby then comes to mum already knowing how to latch etc).

Have faith, by asking this now you are making it much more likely that you will be successful this time, 4 months of painful feeds must've been horrific, you did a brilliant job of lasting that long!

People also have used alternatives to formula before it was invented. I read a history book once that described an orphan being fed by sucking a cloth soaked in cows milk.

There are a few differences between our society and cave society.

for one thing you would havd grown up and lived with breastfeeding mothers all the time, so it would be completely familiar to you. There would have been no performance-pressure on you, no weight checks, no criticism of your choices, no targets. You would not have differentiated much between day and night, just got on with feeding whenever and sleeping whenever. You would have been surrounded by your tribe, who would be protecting you in the early weeks of greatest vulnerability, sharing out your work between them, looking after your children and man. And this sharing would have continued throughout your life. Even down to breastfeeding each others children.

How different from today! I'm not advocating that we should all be primitive, but as society became more ordered, more industrial, and more scientifically knowledgeable, instinctive behaviour became less allowable.

Now you have to conform to rules, not instincts. You have to cope with minimal support, you have to learn a completely new skill from scratch, rather than put into practice something you have seen every day. You have to differentiate between night and day. You have to make sure your baby meets targets. It's a lot of pressure. FWIW bfing was a struggle for me with all 3 dc. The first 3-4 months were always the hardest, but after about 6m it changed completely and turned into a wonderful and satsfying relationship.

In pre-industrial societies, women don't, on the whole, have problems with bf. They have their babies with them all the time when they are infants, and they carry them next to their bodies - there is no big performance with cushions and sitting in the right way and holding the baby right etc etc etc. They just do it - having seen it a zillion times since their own childhoods. The babies feed several times an hour - no one is counting or timing.

The mother is likely to be comfortably nurtured and supported by other women.

That whole package is alien to most modern, western women.

Having said that, it's also likely that babies with oral differences (like tongue tie) might still have caused the mother pain, but she probably accepted it cos there was no alternative. Mothers who were literally unable to feed for whatever reason probably accepted that their babies were fed by (an)other woman/women.

There is lots of evidence that mothers in ancient societies did not 100 per cent universally breastfeed but this would be for social and cultural reasons - Roman nobility did not breastfeed, for instance, but had wet nurses (usually slaves). There are lots of examples of early severance from the breast in ancient warlike cultures, for boys.

This book has lots of this sort of stuff in, if you are interested :)

I have wondered about how cave ladies got on, continuity of the human race etc as I
1 - had hypermemis and didn't eat for 2 months and had to be rehydrated by drip several times.
2 - DS was footling breech, delivered by em CS
3 - I produced no milk

but then, infant and maternal mortality used to be much higher than it is is modern society.

Think PrettyCandles and tiktok said my thoughts spot on.

I honestly found breastfeeding very easy - I very few problems luckily.

However breastfeeding seemed very normal for me, as me and my younger siblings were all breastfed until we were one, and all my relatives and parents friends breastfed. I do appreciate that this is very rare for someone born in the UK in the 70s.

As I was used to seeing it from a very young age, I think I was aware of what was 'normal' for a breastfed baby and I knew what to expect. Maybe this made it easier for me? I could also ring my mum if I had any questions or problems and she could help as she breastfed 4 children so was a bit of an expert :)

I had a few problems initially as couldn't properly breastfeed for 10 weeks so expressed milk but after that it was easy, the most natural thing in the world. I breastfed for 15 months and had no problems at all.

I wish i could do it again !

I found it very easy. I did feel an initial sort of let down pain for a few weeks with my first but beyond that I felt nothing.

I found it easy with DD except for early let-down pains which went after a couple of weeks. (BF for 18M)
Was really surprised with DS at how painful it was. Not just the letdown but his latch was agony. I went to a BF councilor and she showed me how to get DS to latch differently and immediately it was better. The letdown still hurt for the first couple of weeks and DS had something wrong (for 7 weeks) that made him cry a lot but we stuck it out and are still going comfortably (DS 13months now).
I hope you get some proper (good) support this time and that it comes easier. It can be lovely and relaxing and bonding.

And I second what others say about cave people - they didn't feel they had to have the cave spotless and have perfect hair and cooked dinners and perform -less social pressure to be doing things other than BF. Plus they had no choice - baby fed or died so they stuck it out - grim if it was painful.

Thanks everyone for all of your knowledge and experiences, you are a kind bunch... as the time gets nearer its preoccupying me, which I am sure does not help. I keep thinking maybe someone could help lots of mums and babies andcoinitin with a hypnofeeding CD...

GreenMonkies I didn't use a dummy, nor did I offer supplementary bottles until 12 weeks, when I was already at the end of my tether and all they did was help me carry on that extra month, my mind was pretty made up. I asked about Thrush and until I joined MN this year I had never heard of tongue tie!

I am hoping this time the combination of me being nearly 8 years older and wiser (I was only just 21 with DS), midwives maybe being better informed, a very pro breastfeeding DP and of course MN will make it a different experience. I am though also determined not to beat myself up as much as I did if it still doesn't work. I think this was part of the problem, so hopefully giving myself a break and not being a complete matyr will actually make it work better.

What tiktok said.

I am another who found it very easy and I have been surrounded by BFing my whole life so have had lots of other women to talk to, never any suggestions from people who matter to me to use formula etc.

I sympathise its like razors as I remember, and never improved. Stopped kidding myself at ten weeks

If I ever give birth again I will try and give those essential initial juices for the first few weeks only

YY Knuckingfackered exactly like razors, but confusing guilt inducing razors that never take time off night or day

i think the problem is that we don't see people breastfeeding any more

in cultures where breastfeeding is the norm they rarely have problems. a lot of the troubles women have are related to latch and positioning for example... in those cultures where they are constatnly seeing other women feed they don't have that because they instinctively know how to latch a baby on correctly

think about learning to drive. if for the first 17 years of your life you've sat in the passenger seat, watching someone else drive, you're going to have a pretty good idea of what to do when you get into the drivers seat

if on the other hand you've only ever seen a handful of cars drive past you briefly, you're going to get into that car and have no idea how it all works

this is why it's so important to try and normalise breastfeeding. to make people realise that it's ok to feed in public, and for them to be able to do that comfortably and without fear of rebuke
to have breastfeeding mothers on television and in magazines.

there are a few bits in the politics of breastfeeding where Gabrielle describes talking to people in places where breaastfeeding is totally the norm and they just didn't understand at all why people would need to be taught to breastfeed.

you're right OP, the most natural thing in the world SHOULD be the easiest thing, but a lot of things need to change over here before that will happen.
I think most women I know have had at least minor difficulties. I don't think there are taht many people who just pop baby on and off they go and experience zero problems the entire time

sorry, didn't answer your other question

i battled with ds1 for around 4.5 months in excrutiating agony before mixed feeding (with ebm and formula) and then totally FF from about 6 or 7 motnhs
turned out he was tongue tied. wasn't picked up by any of the MW or HV or BFC I saw. am still gutted about it actually because it would have taken nothing to fix

ds2 was also tongue tied, but thankfully i was aware of it this time round and we had it snipped at 3 weeks. couple of visits to a BFC to improve positioning after that and we were absoltuely fine, fed til 16 months

ds3 some minor positioning probs causing sore nipples, fixed at 1 week by visit to lactation consultant, still feeding at 14 months

What tiktok said.

Plus I like to think of it like this, BF is natural BUT it's also a learned skill. As previous posters have said cavewomen would have grown up around other women BF so seen this skill pratciesed everyday. A lot of women today have never seen a baby BF before they try to BF themselfs so haven't learned that skill. It has to be tought but if the trainer isn't well trained then they can't always give the right advice. This had been wittnessed in primates who have been raised in zoo's offtern they just don't know how to feed there young.

I didn't really have any problems feeding DD appart from that inital letdown toe currling sensation that seatled down after a while. I didn't have any presure to FF either as both me and DH had been BF so GP sour this as normal.

What exactly is Tongue tie? what does it look like? DS is 7.5 and his mouth is constantly open, would I be able to see it now? I will look at the links you guys have posted for me now too.

I think that the key to good breastfeeding is positioning. The problem that many women have is that they have no idea how to get the baby to latch on in a comfortable way.

Giddyup, I think you are doing all the right things doing your research now.

I think you might find this webpage helpful. Its an alternative way of getting a baby to latch on if the nhs method doesn't work for you.

www.biologicalnurturing.com/

I suggest you read "The Food of Love" by Katie Evans.

In terms of being pain free and confident of supply, feeding dd was a doddle. However, I had no idea how completely knackering having a baby full stop would be, and I was guilty in the early 6 weeks or so of associating the terrible sapping tiredness with the fact I was breastfeeding, rather than with the fact that I had a baby IYSWIM.

FWIW it did get much easier, I became less tired and happier once hormones settled, and I also came to realise from talking to friends that everyone is tired at that stage, and while it's true that with formula feeding partners and parents can help at night, in reality it does tend to be the mother who bears the brunt of exhaustion wrt night feeds.

I was fortunate in that my own mother breastfed, and while I didn't see her doing it (was the youngest), it was still seen as the norm by me and dh was very supportive despite having been ff himself. Also I had a lovely great aunt who had been a midwife just after the war and then a (fantastic) health visitor, and just knowing that she was rooting for me and was so matter-of-fact made me more determined to persevere.

DS1 was trickier to feed, not so much because dd around (that never seemed an issue - she was very accepting of him and his need to feed) but because he was slightly tongue-tied and also just less pliable in some respects. Couldn't give him little feed before going out "just in case" - always felt as if was fighting the feed. But then that's ds1 for you!

DS2 fine.

I do think that I have been fortunate not to have experienced pain/cracked nipples/mastitis/thrush, all of which would have perhaps threatened my resolve at a time when one is naturally at a low ebb because of exhaustion.

Several posters have mentioned having your female relatives to support you and that makes all the difference.

I experienced this first hand - both my dss refused to feed as newborns. With ds1 we struggled for ages, couldn't get him to feed, developed supply problems and didn't get it properly sorted until he was 4 months old. Did eventually go on to feed until he was over 2, but I was still really worried about the whole nb/establishment thing.

With ds2, my sister was here when he was born. Again he did not eat for the first 24 hs. Then my sister came in and said 'OK, he needs to feed now. She sat with me, just holding my hand and supporting me, calmly and patiently, for 2 hours until I finally managed to get ds2 to feed.

Then she did it all again 2 hours later and again every time until ds2 started to ask for feeds a couple of days later.

I had equipped myself with big tubes of lansinoh, was ready to call the lactation consultant, you name it. I never needed any of it. 4.5 months on, it's still going totally smoothly, despite ds2's reflux.

Humans are social animals. We need the support of others around us. Supporting a mother with a newborn is hard work, and she will be very vulnerable without her tribe around her - which is probably why we are social in the first place.

Female chimps who are raised without a social group (in captivity) do not know how to take care of their young, and are often unable to do so at all.