Has anyone successfully reintroduced breast after 7 days bottle only?

[Poppy954]

My baby is nearly 5 weeks and we've had a few bf problems. She lost weight in the first 3 weeks due to a tongue tie and poor latch. She had the tie sorted but still needed ebm top ups. Now we've both got thrush ( me - breasts , her -mouth) and I've been told if I choose to take the most effective treatment (tablets ) I'll have to ff for 7 days and express / throw away to keep my supply going. I fear that even if I can keep my supply going, after 7 days of bottle suck only she won't be interested in the breast. Has anyone experienced anything similar and been successful?

Hmmm, sure someone with proper knowledge will come along soon, but none of my friends who had thrush had to stop feeding. Was this advice from a GP? With the best will in the world they often know bugger all about breast feeding/medication whilst feeding. Who helped you with your previous problems? Are you seeing the infant feeding coordinator at the hospital? I'm sure they'd be able to give you good advice, or one of the help lines (NCT, LLL - you don't need to be a member to get help) There is a medication in breastfeeding helpline - hopefully someone will pop along with the details.
You've done incredably well in difficult circumstances to get so far, let's see if we can get you a bit further.
Do you know what medication is being suggested? Any allergies? Other medication that limits what you can have? Might help someone give you targeted advice.
If you absolutely do need to stop & want to return later you will get all the help/encouragement you need here. I had to stop for a week whilst I was in hospital but with support here got back to fully breast feeding.

If it's the oral antifungal treatment fluconazole you can definitely feed on it, I was prescribed it in a maternity hospital with DS1 and was told it was safe, the amount that gets into your milk is less than the pediatric dose. There is some risk with it building up in the system in babies under 6 weeks, which is why they're supposed to be absolutely sure you do have thrush (and not some other cause of pain) before prescribing and are a bit more cautious with mums with very young/small babies. If you wanted to be super cautious you could try the topical treatments for a while til she's closer to 6 weeks and see if they work.

ds2 was a twin and didn't breastfeed for the first six weeks, after a rocky start and entirely bottlefed from formula (probably tongue tie) He then took to breastfeeding!! And continued for two years.

SIL has just expressed for twins for last four months, whilst not physically breastfeeding them, (her milk went into bottles) at all, so it is possible to just express and keep supply going if you want to go down that route.

There is definitely safe medication available for the treatment of thrush..... Please contact your local breastfeeding group who will advise you best but sounds like you have been given duff information!!!!!!!

Have a look on breast feeding network guidance on thrush and take to your GP if nessersary

Thank you for the support. There is lots of conflicting advice about fluconazole. From what I can see the bfn says
'The half life of Fluconazole in babies is 88 hours. Levels reaching the baby via breastmilk can accumulate to a level in excess of the dose given to babies directly. This can result in adverse effects in the baby.'
The HV has been today and spoken to a pharmacist who says I can continue to feed but it can cause diarrhoea in the baby. It is really useful to know others have used it with no ill effects and also that babies have gone back to the breast. I'm focusing on getting our latch right so I've decided I'm not going to stop feeding but I'm going to give the topical cream a chance before taking the tablet as Leedy suggests to get her nearer to six weeks.

Sounds like a plan. The half life/building up thing only applies to young babies under 4/6 weeks from what I've read (it's also the reason why they only give them fluconazole every second day if they're getting it themselves), so with an older baby it should be less problematic. DS1 had absolutely no ill effects from it, not even a dicky tum, btw, and I was on it for 10 days when he was about 8 weeks. Even if you do go on the oral treatment, keep up the topical ones, the Daktarin gel is super good at clearing up oral thrush (DS2 got a spot of it last year and it was gone in a couple of days with Daktarin, I didn't get it at all).

Sounds like a good plan. The advice I was given was fluconozole is only effective when you have it in the milk ducts not just on the skin. I took fluconozole for weeks on end before being told this!

Also get treatment for the baby so you don't pass it back and forward.

Thanks leedy and mcbaby