Milk never came in 1st time, will it happen again?

[mozzybear]

When I had DS, I had to have a CSection due to mountains of complication.

I tried to BF as soon as possible. The staff (actually the DAY staff) at the hosp were fantastic and helped me try absolutely everything to BF.

I gave up in the end because DS just wasn't getting it, I even had a neo-natal midwife come to see me, just in case there was a problem with DS. DS was 5 days when I gave up.

Even with all the attempts, the expressing, my milk never came in. I produced some small amounts of colostrom.

I want to have another baby and I want to try BF again, but I'm worried my wilk won't show.

Has anyone any experience of this or any info??
Ta

Did anyone ever explain what the problem was? Was it just that your DS wasn't good at suckling and so the stimulation didn't happen or a physical thing with you?

bump

He could just about manage to suckle through a nipple shield (which was used after no success normally) But the milk never came in, I had leaky nipples for a few days after I stopped but no sign that my milk had really come in. DS was 37+2. I was expressing every 2 hours to keep things going. It was my HV who suggested that my milk had never come in. The main milk that is.

mozzy, that must have been a really difficult time for you.

There are isolated cases where milk really does not come in at all - the ones I know about (only indirectly) have been associated with a pre-existing condition such as PCOS, use of fertility drugs (I think someone on mumnset reckoned her problem was due to this, though the drugs shd in theory not have this long term effect).

Sometimes, the milk does not come in with a 'bang' - it sort of comes in sneakily, and in less than vast quantities, but it does come in. This, actually, is more common than it not coming in at all. There are other cases where the milk came in as late as day 10 or even 12.

In an ideal world, your baby would have had whatever colostrum you could have produced supplemented with donated human milk, while you continued to express and do all you could to get the baby on.

I don't know if any of that helps, sorry.

hi. not got any experience of this but things might be better this time. you should speak to a bf councillor before you have your baby as they will help you as much as they can.

are you having another csection or a vbac? i got told milk takes a bit longer to come in with a csection.

i know this hasn't got much to do with it but my sister has never bf but told me that her milk dried up soon after having her first but with her second it took many weeks for it to dry up so you might have better luck this time.

really hope you get the help you need.

I am expecting number 2 and have exactly the same worries. My milk never really came in after a very traumatic natural delivery. One of my friends also could not feed her first child but persisted a second time with her daughter and managed to feed her without any problems.

I think for me, the media and press made everything sound so wonderful about breastfeeding and as a magical experience so I really did not know how hard it could be. The reality for me was that my baby was very hungry, I did not have enough milk to feed her I was very sore and tired (I don't think I got her to latch on properly - I was so desperate for her to feed I just let her on in the hope she would get anything) and it was just a mess. She got thrush in her mouth and started to get jaundiced so I decided it was time to stop after two weeks and switched to bottle feeding. I was very very upset about stopping but now I know it was the right thing to do for us.

This time I will ask for a lot more help from people like the NCT la leche league and my friends who have managed to feed. I think with a different set of expectations and a different baby, things could work out this time. I hope that you find the same too - good luck.

I am in exactly the same position aswell - so good to know that things can be different second time around

With my DS, I tried bf for 2 days but he wouldn't latch on and, by hand expressing, I only managed to produce a few drips (literally) of colostrum. I am to this day convinced my milk never came in as my boobs never got sore and full as the MW told me to expect and apart from 1 small drip one day after a shower, they never leaked at all - they never felt any different tbh.

I had leaky boobs for a couple of days after I stopped (DS was a week old by now) and they felt a bit tingly but never really full. I was never advised that I could keep trying (which now annoys me) though I'm not sure my milk supply would have ever caught up.

It sounds to me as if you had milk. It took around five days for my milk to come in with ds and I have never - either with ds or dd had that thing people talk about with painful engorged breasts or anything, just that one day there was some milk for my baby. With dd (second child) it happened, totally quietly and painlessly on day 3. With ds I gave some formula but kept him breastfeeding as well. I fed him for over a year and dd for two (much to my surprise!)
Sometimes if a bit of placenta is retained that also prevents milk being produced, doesn't it?

I wouldn't worry too much about what happended the first time - whether you milk did come in or not.

My friend who managed successfully to feed her first child had to feed her baby every hour day and night to buid up her supply and she was in a mess - I am ashamed to say that seeing the state she was in, I was encouraging her to give herself a break and to top up which is contrary to everything people like the la leche league and nct bf counsellors will say, but I was worried about my friend.

So whilst there is every possiblity that your milk did not come in quickly and in sufficient amounts, it can take a long time, a lot of hard work and self-sacrifice to get things sorted (in my friends case about 10 weeks of constant feeding to build up her supply).

Just remember you did what was right for you and your baby last time and you will do what is right for your next baby. May be things will be easier for you next time, may be you will be squirting milk across the room like I expected but for sure we will all go into things a second time around with our eyes far more wide open.

Best of luck with everything