No Milk

[P45]

Breastfeeding was agony for me. Didn´t need any pain relief for the birth but was in absolute agony and crying everytime I breast fed (only for 1 week). My milk never seemed to "come in" and although I expressed for 3 weeks never got more than 30ml at a time. At the 6 week check (inc. breast check the gyno asked what I´d taken to stop my milk (I had been given something to get some but this never worked). Has anyone else just not had any milk? I know I was really stressed with new baby, could this be the cause? And the agony didn´t help either I suppose. Will this happen with a second baby?

Sad story, P45.

The fact breastfeeding hurt so badly for you indicates that your baby was not 'on' well enough...and this might well be enough to affect production.

Expressing can be of variable effectiveness, too.

To take the place of the baby stimulating milk production you really need to express 8 x in 24 hours.

There seems to be a tiny number of women who have a serious underlying problem with milk production, however. Sometimes, this is connected with retention of fragments of placenta (but you would have told us if this was the case with you) and there are some experts who think there may be some effects of PCOS (though I have known women with PCOS who have bf just fine).

Stress would have no effect on milk production, but it might have an effect on let down.

It might help you to call someone and talk about this - try one of the volunteer helplines.

Hope you can find out more.

Sorry to hear this, P45. How upsetting for you. I was told that I didn't have enough milk with my first, and ended up mix-feeding. But I managed to feed my second for nearly two years. It took a while to establish feeding, but it did work well in the end. The two babies had very different feeding 'styles', but one thing that was consistnet was that any pain was almost enitrely due to positioning. I got wonderful advice from the NCT regarding this (asnd cried on their shoulders several times). The amount you expressed means very little. The first time I expressed I got 80ml, and never got more than 30ml at one sitting after that. In fact, with dd (the one I managed to feed) I sometimes got nothing out at all!

If you were in agony and crying ever feed, you may not have been relaxed enough for let down to happen? Maybe with the second baby you could arraneg a bf counselor to check your positioning, or what I did was everytime I bfed in hospital from the start I got someone to make sure I had him positioned right.

Thank you for your support. Tiktok, what is PCOS? I think the position was ok, did get the midwives to check on a regular basis. Would a breast infection upset production by the way? Beartime I think you may be right and the letdown just didn´t happen. I was just terrified at the time at the whole experience of being a new mother.. Thanks again!

I had difficult bfeeding dd2, never seemed to get going although I limped on for four months I supplemented from week two.

turned out I had lots of retained products (not picked up until scan when dd2 was 13 weeks). after these were removed I experienced a dramatic increase in milk production - sadly I had gone off the whole thing by then and gave up at 19 weeks.

luckily this time (dd3) everything seems hunky dory.

Sorry to say this, but midwives aren't the best people for advice on breastfeeding. Sprecialist bfing counsellors (eg from NCT, but there's also La Leche League and Asssociation of Breastfeeding Mothers) are really far better, plus they have more time and patience to dedicate to you.

Towards the end of your pregnancy with no2 (apologies if I'm being presumptuous here) why don't you go to some breastfeeding workshops so that you can get some first hand advice to help prepare you? You don't need to wait for a problem to ask for help.

I think you need to relax and be confident in your abilities, and please try again with number 2. I agree with prettycandles that you should go to whatever class or talks you can to find out as much as poss.

As for expressing I never got much more than 30 to 50 ml out, so it is not a good indication of milk production.