Why my mum says her milk 'dried up' after few weeks?

[MiaMamma]

Hi, I just have one question - why women who had their babies in 70's and 80's say their milk supply dried up after few weeks?

My mum and her sister both say that they weren't able to bf after two weeks, they just 'didn't have any milk'? What did they do wrong then? They're both convinced they didn't do anything wrong, 'it just happened' but I'm sure it's not the case. I would like to explain them but I don't really know the reason myself.

Sorry to hear that Alipiggie, were you told that your's was an unusual case?

As to my Mother, she bf all four of us 1971 -1983 with varying degrees of sucess. For the first two she was trying to do a four hourly pattern, but actually couldn't leave us crying, so wasn't too strict about it.She managed 6 months with me in 1971, and then less than 2 months with my brother in 1972, she got Mastitis and was told by gp to give up, third child she was bfing in summer of 1976 (born in May, and she gave up because felt she didn't have enough milk in heat with two youngests to run around after. She did try though, she drank lots and fed on demand, turns out sister was celiac, so thats why she didn't gain weight. In 1983, she wanted to bf her youngest to a year but only got to 4 months. She blames lots of garlic and red wine on holiday and mixed feeding to please my Dad who wasn't happy about accidental fourth baby and wanted family life to be disrupted as little as possible.
Quite sad that she never quite managed to do it as long as she wanted to, except for me, she was considered a bf star by all her friends for getting to 6 months, mind you I was on some sort of cereal mixture from 6 weeks.

She is pleased for me that I am still bf mine at 20 months. Hope this of interest to people and not too long!

I remember my M/W saying 'How often do you go four hours without a drink or something to eat then??'

It quickly became obvious how ludicrous the four hourly schedule was after that.

Very interesting Overrun.
We are never bored by b/feeding posts on MN.The longer,the better!

Re. the comment that it is not just hvs who recommend the 4 hourly schedule - my s-i-l was told by the paediatrician to do it on 4 hourly schedule for her baby who was born at Easter. This was a baby who was born 5 weeks early and was struggling to learn to suck in any case. The only reason given was, 'You don't want to end up having to feed him all the time, do you?'
Fortunately as she had already bf two very successfully, she ignored this very dubious advice and fed on demand. Baby is doing fantastically well and putting on weight like you wouldn't believe.

Moondog, my colostrum was bright yellow - think daffodil rather than primrose.

did she complain to the hospital?

No, too busy breastfeeding

If she had been the complaining type this would have just been one thing on a long list.... She was meant to have the baby in Leeds but went into labour suddenly while visiting her mum in London. Well, first of all when she turned up in London they wouldn't do anything (including give her the antibiotics she needed urgently due to her being Strep B+) until they had laboriously copied her Leeds notes out onto their forms by hand. Then when the baby was transferred back up to Leeds by ambulance they wouldn't let her go in the ambulance and made her get a train - thus separating her from her week-old baby for more than 6 hours just when they were trying to establish bf. And in this day and age....

don't know if anyone else has said this either but they used to feed for 10 mins on one breast and then whip them off and stick them on the other

also they were a bit obsessed as far as I can tell from my mum with putting weight on

weight on the babies, not them!

Well no wonder they weren't putting weight on if they were whipping them off the breast before they'd had a chance to get hold of hindmilk...

WTF do paediatricians learn about bf? How is it possible to give such bad advice? When did they do their training? I can understand it if the pead is 60 and did training 30 or 40 years ago, but surely now they are given some basic bf information when they're trained? Or possibly not?

IIRC trainee doctors get about one class on bf while they're still in the academic pre-clinical part of their training.

pretty candles, they may not get that. It depends on the curriculum offered. They may learn about anatomy of the breast and so on but not the reality of bf. It's a scandal.

my mum (70's births) was told first day 5 mins each side every 4 hours then bottle top up every feed, next day 10 mins and so on. She can remember everyone on the huge ward winding babies at the same time. All babies whipped off to the nursery at night, mums given sleeping pills cos they needed their rest and babies bottled fed overnight. After the first night my mum insisted on being woken to feed us.

Amazingly she fed my older brother for 5 months, two of which were spent resisting the local HV demands to put him on the bottle cos it was time, me for about a year and lil sis for about 14 months. She did have gallons of milk though and expressed for a whole unit of special care babies. Also fed on demand once home.

Funnily enough my granny (mums mum) got horrendous mastitis and quit (forties/fifties) bet is was cos of scheduled feeding.

I was startled by the bottle top ups means no babies born in hospital in Edinburgh in this period were exclusively breast fed - how insane is that

Bet we were born in the same hospital, babaworshipper - me & my sisters were 70s Edinburgh babies & my mum fought really hard to BF us, she always said she'd never have managed it if she wasn't so bloody-minded, everytime someone told her to give her a bottle it made her more determined to BF!! She had a hideous labour with me, though & is still really traumatised by it.

Western general for us Liath!

Think it was all a bit pro bottle then. My mum has her baby book which she was issued in the hospital and by 6 months babies had no milk feeds at all just solids . Being a bit out there she didn't start weaning until 4 months which was considered crazy in those days!

I think a lot of people had awful times then, my mum said one poor woman had a still born baby and was shunted in with everyone else but was allowed the curtain shut

Simpsons here - had dd at the new one too.

Funny how advice can change completely over time! Think my mum ignored most of it & did what she wanted !

Are you still in the area?

I had my dd at simpsons, have now scuttled off to livingston due to lure of a detached house instead of a flat. baby number two due end of august. Planning a homebirth this time.

Good luck, I'd have a homebirth too if I manage to get up the duff again.

No way do I want another hospital birth not for me. Dd will be 2.3 when this one appears.

i don't think it's as simple as in the 40s this, in the 50s that - there have been strands of advice of every type along the way. And certainly the bf clinic at the JR in Oxford still does weighing before and after every feed in some cases (not all) - I am guessing completely when I say that in some cases I think it might actually raise confidence. I'd agree in a lot of cases it can be catastrophic - my grandmother was a true fundamentalist bf'er (kids 20s, 30s) and whipped out her weighing scales for all her daughters' children. All 10 of us grandchildren born in the 60s had hugely varied bf experiences - 4 eldest grandchildren were bf'd lengthily by my aunt through mastitis and consultant orders to stop, 3 children of middle aunt were bf'd but youngest put quite quickly onto condensed milk as mw said it was just the same as breastmilk, 3 children of youngest hardly bf at all. Wonder if advice changed markedly through the 60s, or is it acceptable to say that levels of milk production do vary - 99% of women can produce enough, but some less than others?

I'm convinced that some do produce less - me for one. I had problems feeding ds and put that down to bad support and advice at the very begining, but, although I went on to feed dd for 23m, I never felt that I had much supply. I have never felt letdown, have barely ever got engorged, and dd, while clearly satisfied and feeding well, always wobbled along the 50thC yet shot up to 91st when she got onto solids and has stayed there ever since.

I was born in '69 and my mother says the midwives came round and automatically gave everyone an injection to dry up their milk. If you refused, you were regarded as a bit weird - and you had to know refusal was an option in the first place, IYKWIM. Formula was 'scientific' and therefore better. And yes, they did take the babies away at night.

That's why she insisted on a home birth for my sister in '72, and breastfed.

This is an interesting thread. I'd really like to know what went on with me when I tried to bf. DD cried almost constantly for 4 days. My gut feeling was that she was hungry, yet I was feeding her for an hour at a time and 10 mins after she was crying again so I'd try again. She lost a worrying amount of weight and I was beside myself having hardly slept since the night before I went into labour. Support on the ward was the nurse grabbing dd's head and shoving it on my boob, then turning on her heels and going back to the nurses station and the internet. Support at home was the midwife telling me I had to get strict with her and describing controlled crying. She was 2 days old FFS! By day 4 the midwife suggested bottles and my relief was palpable. Dd went onto formula and from that night I had a different baby.

My boobs never leaked or got sore, I didn't notice any difference when I stopped bf (if I ever started). I've always wondered if there was ever any milk there at all.

I don't feel sad, guilty or angry, I tried my best and I think I made the right decision at the time. I'm just really curious as to what was really going on.

I would agree that diff women have varying levels of milk production. I leaked a v small amount twice in the entire time I have been feeding (25months). Never needed breast pads. Dd was a very frequent feeder and took a long time about it. My sis claims she saw the back of her head for months! Slightly engorged occasionally for first few weeks then not, just felt a bit full when coming up to some feeds.

My mum had milk pouring everwhere from both sides whenever she fed she had to use a bowl on the other side to catch the excess.

I would imagine that in the 70's when (in Lothians) a weeks hospital stay at least was mandatory. Every part of you and your babies interaction was managed by the clock and the schedule if you didn't have an abundant supply you would have been stuffed.

Could have been a dodgy latch SM. Poor latch could have delayed milk production. Might not you could have been one of the v small minority who really dont produce milk.

The BF support (HA!) you got was crap though. An experienced BF expert would have observed and assisted you with latch etc certainly without mauling you and your baby.

I have a fabulous book called 'Mothercraft by Mary Truby King. Fourteenth Impression. An Up-To-Date Exposition of the Truby King System of Mother and Child Welfare including a chapter on the Expectant Mother'.

Truby King was born in 1858 and died in 1938.

His advice (which was held in very high regard at the time in the 1930's onwards) was that "as soon as the mother has rested after childbirth, baby will be put to the breast and again (for two or three minutes) every six hours for the first thirtysix hours and thenceforth every four hours. In general, babies do best on four-hourly intervals (after the first thirtysix hours) with an eight hour interval at night....Baby gets very little from the breasts at first, but his regular suction is the natural means intended for the establishment of breastfeeding, and so baby must be wakened for his feeds when they are due. A little boiled warm water is given to baby by bottle after each nursing till the milk supply is established." He also said that "Care must be taken not to let baby suck too long at first as (1) he may be disgruntled at being kept at the breast for more than a minute or two when there is nothing there for him and (2) strong sucking at an empty breast for too long a time may cause skin of the nipple to crack. As milk comes in, baby can stay longer at the breast. Many babies get their full allowance when sucking for only five minutes at each breast, and no baby should be allowed to suck for more than ten minutes at each breast ( a total of twenty mintues at one feeding."

Now as a student midwife in 1983, we were taught to give water as a first feed at 6 hours old to make sure the baby did not have a defect in the oesophagus (we passed a nasogastric tube at bith to check that it was patent). Mothers would then feed their babies and top up with water by bottle to prevent jaundice. Where I trained was seen to be progressive as they had moved away from timing feeds. Most hospitals still advised starting feeds at 3 mins 1st day, then 5 mins then no longer than 10 mins. Mothers were told that babies got all they needed in 10 minutes each side.
Not much change there in 40 years!!

Women who had a good supply of milk could cope with these routines as they would lactate anyway. Women who needed more stimulation than was 'allowed', were then unable to produce enough milk because of the rigid routines.

Now I am sure you are wondering how to get a newborn baby to sleep all night?

"What to Do if Baby Wakes and Cries in the Night

1. Change his napkin if wet, turn him over gently on to his other side, and tuck him in firmly.

2. If he does not go to sleep but seems fretful, make sure there is sufficient air in the room. Baby cannot sleep properly in a stuffy atmosphere. Make sure that baby's feet are not cold. His clothing may be rucked, or there may be a pin pressing against his body.

3. If he still does not settle, give him an ounce or so of warm boiled water - no milk.

4. Baby may have wind. If the wind is in the stomach, give 1 teaspoon of dill-water in 2 teaspoons of warm boiled water, or a pinch of bi-carbonate of soda (baking soda) in a little warm boiled water. Then hold baby against your shoulder and gently rub his back. He may bring up some wind and feel relieved. If this is unsuccessful, wring a piece of flannel out of hottish water and apply it to the abdomen. Take care that it is not hot enough to burn baby.

5. Should baby's abdomen be distended, give him an enema at 105 dgreed Fahr. This will help him to pass wind from the bowel. In the morning study the diet baby is having - wind and colic are usually results of over-feeding...."

The last gem of information I am going to share is when to wean.

" For the normal healthy mother and baby, complete breastfeeding is very strongly advised..If the baby's ninth month falls in the height of summer, weaning can be put off for a month or two, and baby may then be weaned very slowly, continuing to have at least one breast-feed daily until the weather is cooler. At six months, whether weaning has begun or not, baby may begin to have barley and oat jelly and vegetable broth. Wean, if possible, between the ninth and twelfth months. The younger the baby, the greater the risks. If the supply of breast milk is insufficient in the early months, make up the shortage at each feed with humanised milk, and do not substitute a bottle-feed for a breast-feed as when weaning"

I think this is the longest post I have ever done. Just wanted to illustrate the advice women were given for many years.