Why don't I lactate?

[Underachieving]

My first daughter is 11 now, I was 19 when she was born. She seemed to do nothing but cry and feed. At 10 days old the midwife came and weighed her and said she'd lost so much weight that either...

1. She would take my baby to the special care baby unit there and then, where they would just bottle feed her anyway.

or

1. I could go to Boots right now and get some bottles and formula. Right now meaning right now and she'd wait/babysit.

I went for option 2, for my daughters sake.

Out of interest I tried out a manual breast pump 2 days later and got around 2 teaspoons of milk. I was told I must have been doing it wrong. No one takes you seriously when you're 19.

With my second child it was all different, I was 30 when she was born. I still am 30 and she is now 14 weeks. I was hell-bent on breastfeeding, no matter what.

It was the same again. Nothing came. There was no milk for baby. There was no milk brought up by hand expressing. There was no milk brought up by hand expressing when the breastfeeding coach actually did it for me. There was no milk on a manual breast pump. There was no milk on the hospital's super duper electric breastpump. There was no milk while sitting in a hot bath, watching my baby play on the mat beside me. It was desperate!!!

Actually I'm exadgerating, there was milk- but again we're talking a teaspoon in 20 minutes.

I also had pain inside the breast tissues behind the nipple. I would rate the pain as an 8/10 (more than breaking a bone)! I was checked for thrush- I don't have thrush. There appears to be no answer as to why I can't breastfeed my children and I can't count how many times in an average week I feel totally gutted about that. I am still not over the loss of breastfeeding now and DD2 ddn't even last the full 10 days this time.

Partner and I want more children yet. We would hope for maybe another 2 or 3 babies, perhaps even 4 or 5, fairly close together (1-2 year gaps). I dearly want to breastfeed them! I would do whatever it took.

Can anyone at all shed any light on what's stopping it from happening?

I've consulted everyone including the obstetrician, the GP, 3 or 4 midwives, breastfeeding counsellors, the health visitor, several breastfeeding organisations and other mums but still don't have an answer.

Without knowing what's wrong I can't put it right. Can anyone shed any light?

Hi,
I'm so sorry you feel like this. I feel your pain as i too could not produce milk to feed my 3 babies.

No-one could give me an answer or even seemed to care. This frustrated me as there is so much government hype about bf-ing and yet here i was desperate to do the right thing but no-one to give me proper help.

I watch my BF feed her baby with such ease and enjoyment i feel huuuuge.

My youngest is now 3 and i have to say, it doesn't cut through me as much as it used to. It still stings a little but its def getting less cutting IYKWIM. I used to feel a failure as a mum, but as they get older you can see that you're a great mum in other ways. My parenting motto is "you can only do the best you can at the time."

I doubt that anything i say will make it ok but just try to realise that, you're a fab mum because you tried to do what you believe is best for your children. Its not down to you not trying, just that your body isn't playing ball. There are some benefits to formula feeding, (although the pro bf-ers may shout me down for that.) Your partner can take some of the pressure off wrt to night feeds, etc. If you try to focus on these it may take the edge off the heartache.

I'm not saying don't keep trying to find and rectify the reason, just don't beat yourself up about it, i did and it did me no favours, just ended up being more stressed and tense about everything which helps no-one. Can't recommend anyone other than who you have already tried for an answer.

And remember, when your child is starting school and running around the playground, no-one will know how he was fed as a baby. Again, i'm not dismissing all the benefits to breastfeeding, more trying to point out, that when breastfeeding isn't possible, formula does a pretty good job!

Did anyone check your latch, either time?
It may be that the latch could have been improved, and the baby wasn't getting milk effectively. I have no idea about pumping that early, but pumping is not a good indicator of how much milk you're actually making at all (who suggested doing this?). That may also explain the pain in your breast.

Although if you have consulted all those different people, I am sure this must have come up by now, so apologies.

It sounds like you have had dreadful support :(

HI
Congratulations on the arrival of your little one. Did you feed the baby on the breast in the early days or just try expressing? I have worked with a few mums who could get only a few drips when expressing but when breastfeeding the baby was getting plenty of milk. How old was you baby when you first tried expressing?
Don't know if we will be able to help you with any answers but hopefully we can help you feel that you have done your absoulte best by your baby and that is all you can do. We have preconceptions of how we want many things to be ..birth ...motherhood ...life and when things do not go 'how they are supposed to ' it can leave us feeling desperately disappointed.

KindKim - so sorry to hear about this.

It's still not possible to be sure what happened with you, or indeed if it is certain you cannot make sufficient milk...that prob sounds very irritating because you have certainly looked for the evidence.

But you do make milk - what you are describing is extreme difficulty in getting milk out by expressing. Apart from this, what made you think you had very little milk second times round? Was your baby showing signs of serious illness/dehydration/poor intake?

Your babies survived on your milk for several days. You must have had more than a teaspoon. If you expressed with this second baby on days 1-4 or 5, then a teaspoon (of colostrum) would be what you would expect to get out, because maybe your milk had not come in yet.

There are rare conditions that mean mothers have severe difficulty in making sufficient milk, but without more investigation, I don't think there is enough evidence to be sure you're in that group.

The pain in your breast could be to do with rough expressing, as Stealth suggests.

Were you able to put your second baby to the breast straight away after birth and allow unrestricted access and closeness with no separation after that? Did anyone help to see if your baby was transferring milk/colostrum? Lots of questions - too soon to give up hope that you can never do this thing :)

Poor you for feeling like this OP.

It seems like you got rubbish support right from the start.

I can't add much more to what has been said but thought you may like to check out this link.

If you scroll down on the page you will see a para about tubular hypoplastic breasts. This is one of the rare conditions that tiktok is talking about. Does any thing sound familiar there?

How are you doing OP?

have you ever hsd your thyroid checked?