Why couldn't I breastfeed?

[cantpooinpeace]

So I have 2 children and intended to BF both. Unfortunately this was not the reality. Just before having my 1st child DD, I watched a good friend BF her newborn and it went like this - lifted her top, baby opened her mouth from a metre away and latched on and fed beautifully.
I however spent 8 nights in hospital trying my hardest to feed DD. It was one of the hardest things ive ever done. You name it - we tried it. Ended up with BF specialist involved who was military like but followed her advice by the book.
Most DD ever fed during those 8 days was 2 episodes of about 6 mins but these took hours to achieve. I was attempting to feed 3 hourly and expressing in-between....producing literally a tear drop amount. Latching on was more painful than labour and had tried at birth to feed instantly too, to no avail. I was so sleep deprived due to a very hungry baby, 3 days slow labour and the demanding expressing routine. I had nipple shields, tried every position poss but just could not do it.
MW did some cup feeding but DD seemed to either aspirate or spit most of it out! Have no hang ups about any of it but felt I had no choice but to offer her formula. Had exactly same experience with DS but admittedly didn't do the 8 days.
I'm sure there must be many a post like this but wondered if anyone knew of any valid reasons why some mothers struggle so much?

They also queried breast refusal......is this a recognised diagnosis?

She didn't have tounge tie and her sinuses were ok too.

They said my nipples were fine too (TMI?)

She didn't even want to feed for first 24 hrs

i think some babies just don't get it cant. With my ds i tried for 2 weeks. Putting to the breast, expressing, cup and syringe feeding and formula top ups. I was exhausted and suffering from mastitis when i decided to bottle feed. With dd (now 4 weeks) i tried for 6 days but we wound up back in hospital with severe dehydration and a regimented feeding schedule and spent the whole time questioning why my 2 angels refused what nature intended. I just think they didn't get it.
Reason for mine, lazy baby

Did the breastfeeding counsellor offer any explanation, OP? It sounds like they just shrugged their shoulders in which case they weren't doing their job properly.

No explanations offered, felt like they wanted me to just keep ploughing on forever. It felt like I was out of it with the sleep deprivation too - must have had 15 hrs over a week period.

I figured that there's a certain amount of compatability needed between parent and baby but wounded what others felt/experienced.

Where was the bf specialist from? Was this someone private or from an organisation, or the health service?

Sorry this was such a struggle for you....I am a breastfeedig counsellor and would need more info to go on. The long slow labour may have meant your baby was v. sleepy at birth which would not have helped.

Trying a lot of things, and a lot of handling inc pushing and shoving, and waking the baby up can be counter-productive. Some babies switch off then :(

Specialist was hospital based, she was involved with both my children's feeding. Had natural births both with gas and air nothing traumatic or anything. There was a lot of handling, stripping them down, switching breasts, different positions etc. Would like another child at some point which will probably be my last and would love to feed it well and break the pattern that's forming!
Funny that you said about too much handling - a good friend had a baby recently and was struggling to feed. Her advice was to be more forceful with baby's head.

How long did it take for your milk to come in? I really struggled with DD for the first six days and had to syringe feed her formula 95% of those first 6 days. Only after I got milk would she latch on.

I've no idea Bee, never leaked, got very little when expressing and none when they tried to hand express - so never felt like I had much. They did become engorged when I stopped though.

cant - hands-on breastfeeding 'help' in the early days has been shown to curtail breastfeeding. I have come across many, many breastfeeding mothers who have had a bit of a slow start on the first day or so - then instead of a patient, quiet, encouragement to keep mother and baby snuggled up together, and to respond gently to feeding cues, there is this full-on wake the baby, strip the baby down, push the baby's head, wrap the baby up, hold the mother's breast, ram the baby on, or any two or three of those things.

Babies respond by switching off (going to sleep very quickly, thus provoking even more intense efforts to wake them up); or screaming and going rigid to resist the onslaught; or coming to the breast but just lying there, not actually doing anything to feed.

My belief is that the efforts to 'make' babies feed are very very risky. They make it less likely the baby will overcome early feeding difficulties.

hubbard - I think it's even worse when they label a baby 'lazy' :( :(

Babies will breastfeed if they can. When they are not doing so, the response should be to figure out why and if there is nothing obvious (tongue tie or other anomaly) then keeping mother and baby together and resisting any intense 'help' often enables the baby to just do it. In the meantime the mother needs to protect her milk supply by frequent expressing.

cant - the fact you say 'they' expressed your breasts indicates an over-handling. Mothers should do their own expressing after a bit of instruction and guidance. Someone else doing it for you - unless the mother is unconscious - is invasive and disempowering.

:(

Just an aside, but tiktok - several friends who started BF-ing in hospital recently and had a struggle have described having their breasts 'manhandled' by MWs, all of them in open wards, in order to express milk. They found it absolutely horrible, and I'm convinced it was a factor in them stopping BF-ing very shortly after birth (lots of other factors involved).

"Her advice was to be more forceful with baby's head."

I'm not qualified at all and have only bf one baby but this strikes me as very unhelpful. Babies heads can be very sensitive after birth (esp after assisted delivery, but just squeezing through a birth canal is pretty uncomfortable). If a baby is resisting having his or her head held then this may well be why.

Applying more force (ouch) turns the whole process into managing feeding rather than watching and learning to respond to the babies cues.

In my case DD screamed whenever I tried to hold her head and we only managed to sort latching when home from hospital. A bf-ing counsellor showed me how to snuggle DD close to my breast, wait for her to open her mouth and then just bring her in closer to latch. It took a bit of practice but involved much less noise!

I had a baby that refused to feed after too much handling (pushing the back of his head etc). He literally just screamed when he saw my breasts. I was too tired after a 56 hour labour to think straight and asked for help at every feed...but got differing (and mostly unhelpful) advice each time. Thankfully they at least got me strapped to an electric pump and strict pumping schedule every few hours so my supply didn't suffer and was able to express enough for them to feed DS with some formula top-ups. But they refused to let me/show me how to cup feed so I introduced a bottle so I could actually feed my own baby and that resulted in nipple confusion on top of the breast refusal.

I was very lucky and had support from LLL (been going to meetings during the pregnancy so already knew them which helped) and after we managed to escape the hospital had their help. I continued expressing exclusively for 6 weeks and then got DS back on the breast using shields and he fed using them for 3 months and then carried on feeding until he self weaned at 4 years old.

I am now pregnant with #2 and dreading the same things happening so am planning an intervention and drug free labour to help prevent the initial problems we had and will be refusing ALL help from the mw's and sticking to my LLL leaders for support. I've been attending LLL groups again since I was 20 weeks pregnant and it's really helped give me confidence that even if we do have similar problems again I can get through them. The new biological nurturing information has been really helpful as well. That kind of thinking just wasn't around back with DS so it's been lovely to read lots of info & tips on how to re-affirm the baby's natural instincts to feed if he birth ends up like the last one and he doesn't show an instinct straight away to feed.

Forgot to mention that during my sleep deprived, BF experienced someone asked me (when I dared to even think about introducing formula) what I would have done in the days before formula? Very supportive I know.

I never replied but felt like saying that they would have been wet nursed from a neighbour/ friend/ grandmother and TBH I think I'm more comfortable with formula thanks. That way perhaps my husband might just manage to get in some bonding time. Infact he split the feeds 50/50 and neither of my DC are more clingy to any one of us. Whilst I sit and type here he's taken DD to ballet show practice where I think as a male he will be in the minority. I'm pretty sure his special bond (formed from feeding her the minute I made it home) with her has given him the confidence to go to such things.....I'm digressing.

Hope you are not saying that people who bf are somehow minimising the chance of fathers becoming close to their children....I can assure you my dh would argue with that one :)

"what I would have done in the days before formula?"

Oooh, I'd have been FUMING at that! I'd probably have replied with "well I'd be dead anyway as they didn't have insulin back then" but argh!

I need to introduce formula soon as I'm exclusively pumping, which is wearing me out when all the other crap is taken into consideration. I've had a lot of support in this, but the urge to breast feed is so overwhelming that I have been too scared and keep putting it off :(

Tik Perhaps it just gave him more time with her once pat leave over and back at work.

Cob the feelings of guilt were on whole new level, but faded quite quickly once I saw she was happy being FF. I think just committing to one type of feeding was the key. Prior to that we were BF, CF, BF but approach changed with each new person I was faced with.

I would just like to point out that not all hospital 'breastfeeding specialists' are infact properly trained in breastfeeding help. Our local infant feeding co-ordiantor (who is a MW and very passionate about breastfeeding) has got minimal training in actual help and the local peer-support group has more experience and 'education' than she has. However, she is still seen as the breastfeeding specialist by her colleagues and many most mums.

It is rather frustrating for us as many mums who could be helped by our support never get to us as they feel they've seen the specialist and she couldn't hel, so what would a bunch of mums know?

I'm so sorry you have had this experience. I've not got a lot to add but do suggest Ina May Gaskin's guide to breastfeeding which is very informative. It was this book that gave me the impetus to continue trying to feed my daughter. I had an induced birth and ended up having to have an epidural and forceps delivery. I lost a lot of blood and was quite poorly. I wanted to exclusively breastfeed my baby and was devastated when I would get her to latch on and she would suck and suck and get nothing. She would pull away in frustration and scream. She didn't have a poo or wee for the first 3 days and didn't stop crying. I was told that I couldn't breastfeed my baby by one of the obstetricians who prescribed formula feeds. I had a huge tantrum and demanded to see the breastfeeding consultant. I was lucky that she was around then. After a good chat, where she explained (as no-one else had) that it can take some time after birth, sometimes over a week, for the milk to come in, especially after a traumatic birth. We agreed to continue breastfeeding and when my baby had finished sucking to cup feed her formula and continue stimulating me with a breast pump. After 6 days my milk finally came in and my baby could feed and be satisfied. But those first days were awful and I felt like a complete failure.
I would also like to say that some of the staff who were trying to help me with my breastfeeding had never breastfed themselves and would give advice that, in retrospect, I recognise as being unhelpful.

Cantpooinpeace - sorry you had this experience, just wanted to say that you're not the only one and I had a bit of a similar situation with my DD too. She just wouldn't latch on at all, and I left hospital after a 4 day stay with a baby cup and syringes having never managed to BF her in the postnatal ward at all. She did eventually get it, but then that turned into a whole other story (missed TT)...

When I posted on here ages ago about it, TikTok suggested the man-handling thing may have been a factor for us too, and with hindsight I can see that it certainly didn't help. She latched on for the first time when we were snuggling back home and I wasn't even paying attention at the time! If I have a DC2 I'll be ignoring the pushy midwives and their harassing baby techniques and spending as much skin to skin snuggle time as possible in the early days and weeks.

Its interesting to see how very different it can be for each mother. I felt I gave it my all and had a good deal of support. In all honesty the best night feeding wise I had was when we fed on demand during the night and forgot the gruelling 3 hourly feeding with expressing in-between. The next morning though brought a new MW who felt we should follow the BFSNs advice.
I genuinely feel now that BF can be very complex and there's so much information and techniques to try that it's hard to know where to start and how long to persist with certain techniques when not working. Maybe next time I need to forget the past, start a clean slate and not to overthink it too much.
It is so not as easy as it looks IMO.

Ive never had as many people touch my breasts in my life, and they were full of blood blisters - felt like they'd been trodden on.
That and having given birth naturally to a large baby made Just being comfortable impossible too. Feel a bit self indulgent whittering on about it all but just wondered if id missed a magic trick really.

I had twins and really wanted to BF, although I knew it would be difficult, especially considering the Chinese puzzle you have to solve when both babies are screaming to be fed and you have to try and position them both! I got absolutely no help at all from the midwives - they were all very praising of the fact that I was trying, but had no practical help to offer WRT positioning or how much/often I should be doing it. Equally, HV was astonished that I was even trying . I EBF'd for a while, but eventually that dried up and I exclusively FF'd.

Am only expecting one this time, so maybe will have a bit more success!

It's quit sad all the manhandling that goes on sometimes. It offten seems quit conter productive.

Breastfeeding is a learned skill, but you can teach it without touching either baby or mother. It does however require time and sometimes I think this is what is lacking in hospital, often midwifes don't have the time or training to teach mum's this viatal skill.

I think if your wanting to have more children and try BF again I find seek out more information before hand. Find your local BF group and try to aviod all the manhanderling in hospital.

I'm so sorry that you've been left to feel like bf is a complicated business. Excellent advice to get in contact with your local bf support group while you are pregnant and try to avoid the man handling in the hospital. No one should be touching your breasts or your baby but you! And forgetting about schedules and expressing and just feeding on demand seems like the perfect thing to do.

Oh and MN is a great source of help and support