Has anyone overcome serious difficulties to breastfeed a newborn?

[teamseashore]

I had my beautiful baby girl on 1 May 😊 totally besotted with her, but really upset that I have not yet been able to breastfeed her at all.

In the hospital, she wouldn't latch. After some effort I can occasionally get her to latch but she only takes one or two sucks and then cries or falls asleep at the boob. This pattern has continued and as a result I've had to formula feed as she is not getting anything from me.

I've tried to use a breast pump but am getting nothing. Spoke to a feeding expert and they thought there were a few factors delaying my milk production e.g. significant blood loss at birth.

Now my milk has come in and my breasts are horribly and painfully engorged but i am still getting nothing from the pump and my baby still won't latch.

To top it all off, found out yesterday from feeding expert they think baby has a tongue tie. Hoping to get that sorted next week but feeling so upset I can't breast feed as always wanted to.

Has anyone overcome difficulties like this to successfully breastfeed? Worried it just won t work out now which makes me sad x

I had severe blood loss (lost a litre), have a thyroid condition, and pcos and so in theory I shouldn’t have been able to breastfeed at all. At the beginning it was horrifically painful too - I could see a severe tongue tie but wasn’t taken seriously about removal until baby was well over 2 months old. On top if it all baby lost 8% of birthweight and then didn’t grow appropriately after that.

This is what helped me establish supply:

1. Pregncare Breastfeeding (or something similar)
2. An Iron transfusion (you won’t qualify unless you lost at least 1 litre of blood, but you could qualify for iron supplements).
3. Fenugreek tea / tablets
4. Porridge or something with oats - 3 times a day.
5. Breast massage before baby fed.
6. I flattened then ‘fed’ my breast to baby like a sandwich as he couldn’t latch. Visit Kelly Mom’s website and La Lech League to get good techniques to try with a tonguetied baby. The flipple technique may also work.
7. I used a lactation consultant. It was expensive but she was amazing.
8. Double breastpump. I would pump after every feed at the beginning to get the extra DS didn’t drink. When he started to take more I started using a Hakaa on the spare breast while I nursed.
9. I switchfed. So when DS gave up on one breast after a suck or two I would give him the other even if he only sucked once. Then back to the other.

10. I got every midwife and pediatrician to watch me feed and check if they thought baby was feeding well.

When you are engorged a tonguetied baby will find it almost impossible to latch. Try massaging your breasts under a hot shower. Press above and below the nipple and slowly draw the milk out, it should flow out a bit to give you some relief before you feed

I had issues with DD. Difficulty latching so ended up with wrecked nipples that cracked and started bleeding when she was 3 days old. She had lost 9% of weight at day 5 and she didn't get back to birth weight until 3 weeks old. And she was also terrible for going to sleep after a few sucks.

Things that I found helped we're

1. Switch feeding as PP describes above to get more milk into her
2. Nipple shields - started using them on day 5 and carried on until she was 9 weeks. By this point I was mentally in a better place to cope with things being tricky
3. Flipple technique for getting a better latch (basically shoving the boob in their mouth) - YouTube videos
4. Support from my local breastfeeding service
5. Support from friends - it helped no end to know that other people had also found it tough to get going

Also did top ups until she was about 8 weeks, formula for a few days and then expressed. I didn't have any problems with supply so used a hakaa

I was really glad I persevered and fed to 14 months in the end, with the odd minor hiccup along the way.

Section is booked for DC2 in 4 weeks. I'm hoping the fact that at least I know what I'm doing this time round will make for a slightly smoother start

Congratulations on your beautiful baby girl!

My DC1 was poorly at birth and needed 10 days IV antibiotics, so we had to stay in hospital. Feeding was tricky (in hindsight, simply because he was too exhausted (from being ill) to be able to feed, so got even more exhausted due to not getting enough milk...) to the extent that after 5 days he had to be tube fed.

We did eventually establish breastfeeding, and in the end he BFed until nearly 2yo. But though it has been a long time, I remember well how worried and sad I felt at the time, I shed many a tear. So your post resonated and I didn't want to leave it unanswered!

It took a lot of effort and came with ups and downs...

I started pumping in the hospital when he was on the tube, and it was highly frustrating because the milk was measured and I was constantly sailing at the limit - always needing to get another x ml out or he would have to be topped up with formula. I was basically feeding all day long every day (if you include trying to BF, then pumping, then sterilising - the whole process took about 90 minutes, and had to be repeated every three hours, so 90 minutes feeding, 90 minutes break).
I was lucky that the pumping did work and my milk started to flow and I'd get a lot out, enough to have spare. And with milk flowing like that I got DS back onto the breast when they finally removed the tube.

But only 10 days after we had left hospital, we were back again - because DS was losing weight again, and sleeping too much, he had basically fallen back into that negative cycle of being too tired to feed-not getting enough energy-being even more tired.
The doctor at A&E where we ended up, said drily, "Well of course he is screaming, he is hungry - starving in fact! Just give him a bottle already!" Which was rather painful to hear...

This time we did start giving him bottles. I had some frozen milk left over from before, and by the time that was gone, I had the pumping back up and so for the next 4 weeks or so he had EBM by bottle. Again, this was very hard work.
In this time we saw a BF counsellor who was brilliant, very reassuring, and basically provided us with a plan to get him back onto the breast. It's been nearly a decade so I am hazy on the details, but the plan involved gradually reducing bottle feeds and swapping them for BF.
By the time he was 10 weeks old, he was fully back on the breast.
(And though he had been 100% bottle fed at one point, he never ever took a bottle again after that - which was a bit of a headache when he started going to a childminder later on...)

So it can work out. If you really want to BF, do persevere with the pumping, it often takes a little while to get going properly. Make sure you make a good attempt at the breast each 'mealtime' before pumping, and make sure you get yourself a good pump.

However please remember also that the right way to feed a baby is the way that works for you and gets baby fed. I don't personally regret all the effort I put in at the time, but I would always hesitate to recommend it to anyone else, as it took so much out of me and DP, we were both totally shattered and unable to fully 'enjoy our baby'.

DC2 was 100% bottle and formula fed, and this is also a beautiful bonding experience. Some perks, some disadvantages compared to BF (the established, well working kind of BF), but at least we never had that extremely tiring phase of BF-not-working-well.

Good luck in finding a way that works for you!

I had a tricky birth, lost lots of blood etc so my milk was quite delayed, meant we gave formula and took quite a few weeks to work up to me having enough milk to do most feeds. I get very little with a pump, the only thing that I find works is hand expressing. Secondly, I found the best thing was taking the pressure off and making things as easy as possible. At one point we had a mad routine of trying to express, feed, top up etc every 2 or 3 hours and it was miserable. I stopped trying to give expressed milk to top up and used formula - so no measuring how much I was expressing or having to keep on top of cleaning pump etc. I would hand express in bath/shower/sink as and when I had chance and just let it run away - this was just to keep my supply going, to be honest I used to express a bit in the sink after going to the loo. We used pre prepped formula initially, expensive but quick. I would generally try and bf before offering formula but often would bf after formula and in between and would only give formula when baby seemed quite fussy. I just worked on basis of, if in doubt give boob and give it as often as possible until baby doesn't settle then give formula.

The hand expressing instructions from Mummy369 on this thread helped me when I was in a similar fix. Struggled with bad latch, mix feeding and a low weight baby until 8 weeks when tongue tie was diagnosed and fixed, after that everything improved. I also bought a different size funnel for my medela pump which helped. (And everything @keeponrunning85 said too.)

I can't recommend nipple shields highly enough. My milk was slow coming in after a very long labour, eventually I was able to pump but it felt like a non-stop cycle of pumping, feeding and sterilising leaving me little time to actually spend just being with my baby. Baby girl couldn't latch so one day I tried nipple shields, really not expecting any change, but she's been happily feeding from them since. She's six weeks old now and I am slowly phasing them out.

I also still use Boobix lactation cookies and Neuners nursing tea (you can get the tea off Amazon) and feel like they really helped with my supply.

You might find that you get some milk if you keep pumping, I can't remember exactly how long it took me but I think it was between 7-10 days and it was very yellowy so there must have still been quite a bit of colostrum in it.

Which pump are you using? I had to play around with different modes and settings before I got anything and even then it was very hit and miss at first.

Establishing breast feeding is the single most hardest thing I have ever done. But worth it in so many ways. The beginning is super shit and every feed was so painful I wanted to and actually did cry.

Here's what helped me.

Nursing tea, neuners I think.

Nipple shields. Buy every size because I was shocked I was a large when have tiny nipples which were also inverted at the the time. So you can see why it was very difficult for me.

Every time DS showed any sign of fussing I put him on the boob. Even if he had a marathon feed.

Drinking a ton of water every day.

Porridge for breakfast.

Good luck OP!

Yes, I did manage. Huge blood loss needing a transfusion, let home, then taken back in as pre-eclampsia still an issue. Home again then straight back as dd hospitalised with iv antibiotics for an infection.
Dd had a tongue tie and was getting really frustrated feeding, it also hurt like all hell. Dd was losing weight, so stressful!
I paid for a lactation consultant, who was incredibly kind and helpful, visited me at home and again in hospital, advised on the tongue tie ( it didn’t need cutting) and wrote a plan for me to show the medical team.
Thanks to this wonderful woman I fed dd until she was two and a half, all through my second pregnancy, and then fed dd2 for years.
If you can afford it, then I suggest the same.
Or your hospital may have one on site ?
Don’t lose heart OP. Lots of babies get off to a tricky start with breastfeeding, but most issues can be sorted out.

Yes. Had emcs and a very small baby. She was basically formula fed and put to the breast until my milk came in...milk took a week to come in. I kept pumping once I was home. Then she was fed ebm from a bottle but still put to the breast for the next nearly 3 weeks. By then she's got the hang of latching and suckling, had grown and was more awake. She was my first. I'm not sure I'd have been able to devote the time to pumping if she hadn't.

Just also adding that depending on how bad the tongue tie is it downs necessarily interfere with breastfeeding. My last baby is tongue tied but has very good tongue function - so good Infact that when he was seen at the clinic for his tie they said that it was my choice if I had it done and I chose not to.

In the hospital, she wouldn't latch. After some effort I can occasionally get her to latch but she only takes one or two sucks and then cries or falls asleep at the boob.

DS was exactly the same. Also had tongue tie - got tongue tie clipped and then latched that night, he was 10 days old. It’s not always the magic cure, but definitely worked for him! I hope having the tongue tie sorted will make things work for you.