Daily Mail -"My beautiful baby was starving to death, until I defied the 'breast is best' bullies"

[theUrbanDryad]

i'm not sure what to think here...on the one hand it raises very valid points, but the headline is so inflammatory....

what do you think?

i was in a lot of pain when i first started bf-ing. the community mw checked my latch, said it was perfect. the LLL counsellor checked my latch, said it was perfect. after 7 weeks of very sore and sensitive nipples it got better. but for 6-7 weeks i was crying out and curling my toes every time ds latched on (and he did, a lot, for those first few weeks). there was no tongue-tie, there was no "reason" for the pain, it just hurt. Lansinoh helped a lot, but mainly i just got on with it, and it did ease. to be honest, i used the pain to gauge how well he was latched on. i thought that if it was hurting, then it was ok, because both the mw and the LLL advisor had said it was!

i agree with you tiktok, that we shouldn't say it will always hurt. but i think it's very very wrong to say it will never hurt, or that it "shouldn't". i felt like i was being a wimp because i couldn't handle the pain!

Not OT, really!

Problem is that there is a great deal of controversy about the normal range of blood sugars - and testing is not infallible. You can check this out if you do a medline search.

Routine testing is an intervention that has a very poor evidence base....some babies are deffo at risk, and should be tested, of course (including your dd, where there was a suggestion this condition ran in the family).

I've not really felt the pressure to bf either.
More the opposite.
People are always talking about when and why I should stop. They have done since dd was a few months old. She's 20m now. If I mention that dd is slowly, cutting back then they say things like 'thats good'.
My mum is a typical Daily Mail 'fan' and will be reading this article today and will completely agree with it. She knows breast is best etc but thinks I'm 'tied' to dd and that I'm being soft or soppy by still bf her. She thinks I should have stopped a long time ago. For my sake , so I can go out and she can put her to bed in evening etc. and for dd's sake so she can be a big girl and 'have a drink of milk in a cup'

Tiktoc - you were confusing me with someone else when you responded to issue of pain on breastfeeding. Wellie- I don't think the disparity of percentiles would've bothered me so much had it not been for the fact that he was a big baby (9 1bs, 3 oz) and that he did not seem satiated after feeding.

.

This is so much the opposite of my experience.
Day 2 with DD, at home, 1st midwife visit.

MW: How's the breastfeeding going?
Me: Fine - she wants to feed every night from 12am till 9am so I haven't really slept much, but apart from that fine.
MW: Well give her a bottle of formula then.

I can't be bothered with the whole sterilizing thing, so I didn't take her advice, but she was hardly a breastfeeding bully!

Lucky you

plummy, sorry, you are right. I confused you with OrmIrian.

No worries

MP - lol ! i got the same from my female GP when DS was exactly a week old. i was in absolute agony due to pelvic pain after a long labour, desparate for help with newborn, desparate to get some unbroken sleep and all she said was "give him a bottle of formula at 10 pm every night, many of my patients find they can get away with just the one"

all i wanted was a bloody check up and painkillers !

I don't agree that all babies should have blood sugars tested at birth - testing puts unecessary pressure on mothers and babies IMO. Babies that have had a stressful labour, or have needed resuscitation at birth should have their sugars observed closely but not in isolation. Babies that have plummeting blood sugars are not breastfeeding effectively - they may be at the breast and sucking but they are not transferring the colostrum they need. I see it time and again.

If a baby has low blood sugar, is symptomatic and unable to feed effectively then clostrum should be expressed and given via syringe. If that is not possible then the baby should have formula - no question.

Mothers of babies at high risk of hypoglycaemia are now able to express colostrum antenatally and freeze it if it is needed postnatally.

Anniemac - I am sorry to hear of your experience, that should not happen.

This is the first bf discussion I've come on to as I normally ster well, well away from these but my experience with my ds was just horrible. And I can wholly relate to the lady in the DM. Luckily my son never had to be re hospitalised as I mixed fed eventually.

But having also so had a CS I think it is important to realise that milk takes much longer to come in than if you have given birth naturally - mine took about 4 days after birth!. In that time I had the satndard 72 hrs in hospital and then was sent home. (emergency c-section by the way after 14hrs of good labour - fully dilated and pushing for 2 hrs he was posterior)

I had the two massive extremes of midwife care and assistance with the bf. My ds was a realtively big baby he was desperate to feed latched on fine ( everyone checked) I had no discomfort just nothing there...and he could tell he was starving so after my first 12 hrs a lovely much older mw came in and discussed with me if I wanted to give him some formula - I discussed the whole nipple confusion thing - the fact that I wanted to BF exclusively - but given my son had been screaming for pretty much 12 hrs straight - i had had no rest for now virtually 3 days and had had major surgery - we agreed that it was the sensible thing to do and when I was more rested in a few hours and ds had calmed down would be best to try again - she came back once more and helped me to latch him on and was fantastice. ( she also discussed with me about my milk coming in and how it is delayed with c-section as it takes a while for your hormones to catch up as it were)

Unfortunately I was then moved to a different ward with a young clearly ambitouis midwife who all but physically abused me. now 48 hours after birth my son still had had no more than about 6oz or ff and had been stuck to my breast unsucessfully getting anything. I buzzed for assistance she marched into my room - told me I wasnt getting him latched on properly ( she hadn't previously seen me try )and that I must not do formula -snatched him from me -sswaddled him tight ( he is screaming) grabbed my right breast ( and I mean grabbed ) and pushed him on to it...this went on for about 5 mins - whilst he proceeded to scream I got very upset ...she then duly walked out without saying anything aand I was left to shuffle out to ask for some more formula...

It was awful - and I must apologise that this has been such a long post but I've never written it down before.

To cut and already long story short...I was discharged without having extablished feeding - nobody really cared - I got home and until my milk came in - about another 24hrs later I ff, my ds was never satiated - I could feed for hours and he would never be full or happy...I did everything and more recommended by the NCT and la leche - i expressed to build up supply (could never build up my supply)

Eventually I came to the most happy medium and realisation of all I decided to 'formally' mix feed him and generally it worked well until I decided to stop.

But I still feel very bitter for how those first few weeks where ruined by this whole bf issue .

Now I've kind of lost my thread on what I wanted to say but have shared my expereince and its been quite cathartic....

UrbanDryad - had a very close friend and a couple of doula clients with similar issues, my friend had the worse cracked nipples I have ever seen and was in a lot of pain. Turned out her baby (and the others) had a very high arched palate. So although the latch "looked" okay it was really traumatising to the nipple. Cranial osteopathy (of the baby) and a very observant lactation consultant helped, but like you it was something which basically the baby grew out of. My friend's DD just finished nursing at 26 months. But if she had not had the drive to persevere and really good help and support she would have given up just out of sheer pain. And she teaches antenatal classes and helps women with breastfeeding, but still had difficulties.

ChiTownL - sometimes it is good to write things down to help you get them out. You story demonstrates what I said earlier - for women to successfully breastfeed they need proper postnatal support. I don't think the first midwife helped your milk production one bit by introducing formula at that early stage and the second one compounded problems by making your baby frightened to be at the breast. You got conflicting advice which did not help either. Well done you for carrying on despite it. It is sad that your early weeks were dominated by breastfeeding problems which could have been solved earlier.

ChiTown

Mears is right - crap support all round.

Would it be an idea to write to the maternity unit and tell them how bad it was? You could simply cut and paste from the post here.

I wish more mothers would write and let it be known where the gaps are.

My sense overwhelmingly is that the first mw - who maybe did not do me any favours -was supportive, communicated with me and felt like I was involved - the second was basically trying to 'make' it happen - she was very young - i doubt if she had children ( although appreciate I don't know) as her style and atitude was just total exaperation and a kind of .
It has been cathartic writing it down and I did come to feel very ahppy with my decision in the end and worked for me - but because I came to find the right medium and no because I was coached through it...

Thankyou both for your comments - its been 4 yrs since i had ds do feel time has moved on to recount the expereince with them