Breastfeeding after blood transfusion

[tedster1022]

Hello, I recently gave birth to a beautiful daughter however post partum was uneventful requiring a total of 10 units of blood transfusions At two different hospitals.

I started breast pumping again a few days ago in hopes of relactation. So far I was able to pump colostrum but no milk.

My question is whether there’s any concern about breastfeeding since I have had 10 bloods in me? I’m assuming they are from 10 different people. Is there a correlation? I know all bloods go through intensive testing before getting distributed to hospitals, but could there still be slight chance the bloods in me affect my breast milk which in turn will then be given to my daughter?

Thank you all mums in advance.

I don't think there is any issue about receiving blood, like you say its very well tested. However I assume you must have lost blood to have needed the transfusion, or something similar. That can lead to delayed onset of lactation where you milk doesn't come in as soon as normal.

Yes, likely your milk will be delayed- I think because the hormones are lost with the blood. But it will come with demand. No risk to baby afaik. Do you have your midwife to talk to with any concerns?

As far as I know it's fine - I breastfed my first after a hemorrhage and blood transfusions.

I breastfed fine after blood transfusions.

I meant to say congratulations on your beautiful daughter and because it sounds like you've been through a lot

Gosh you poor thing, hope you are well on the road to recovery now and your iron levels are normalising. Don’t give a minute’s thought to the safety of breastfeeding after blood transfusions - absolutely nothing to worry about at all and if you want to breastfeed your daughter don’t let this detail stop you. Many many mothers will have blood transfusions in the postnatal period and don’t forget too that tiny babies themselves will receive blood transfusions on occasions. The testing is incredibly stringent.

The trauma you have been through physically (and no doubt emotionally) will likely have delayed your milk coming in, with significant blood loss and anaemia both being known for this. Hopefully you are seeking advice from a lactation consultant to guide you in detail, but putting your daughter frequently to the breast and engaging in lots of skin to skin will help with the process of relactation. As will all the usual advice of eating lots of nutricious calorie dense foods (oats are also said anecdotally to be great for milk supply) and maintain good fluid intake and getting rest when you can.

Congratulations and good luck

Meant to say that putting baby to the breast overnight and / or expressing frequently overnight will be key as this is when the hormones responsible for breastmilk production are most sensitive to stimulation.

Thank you for all the positive and reassuring feedback. Right now I’m just pumping to stimulate. I don’t have any milk coming in just yet. It’s very little. Like a couple of drops each session.

I hope the milk will come soon. I’m very nervous right now as I’m still recovering and each pump hurts the uterus and cause discharge. Although I was told it’s normal, it’s still another pain to have to endure. :(

Aww, You’ve been through the mill

I had a very similar experience, PPH and transfusions, my milk took longer to come in.
There’s nothing to worry about from the transfusion point of view (in fact, that bit didn’t cross my mind at the time). Blood is very carefully screened and millions of women have successfully breastfed their babies after transfusions without any adverse effects on baby at all

Take care of yourself and take appropriate pain relief (not sure if you’re still in hospital or not). Enjoy the baby snuggles, you’re doing great

I had the same. When you pump better to do for 15mins regulary sit there for a long time. Also just touching breasts help - think how kittens knead to stimulate milk supply - there are breast feeding websites.

Are you with your daughter OP? Awful for you if separated. I just ask because the most effective thing at stimulating milk coming in will be getting baby onto the breast for skin to skin, little hands touching the breast and even dry sucking. The pump will never be as efficient at stimulating milk as a baby. Apologies if this is insensitive if you are too weak / not with your baby

Hi Tedster- I really feel for you, blood transfusions are a nightmare for patients. Has anybody particularly maternity support worker or midwife demonstrated how to self- stimulate your breasts? It should help your milk to come in and if you haven't eaten much your body will find it more difficult to produce milk. Here's a few little tips (hope this helps):-

Try gently rolling your nipple between your thumb and finger or touching your nipple with a cold, damp cloth. You can also try the Hoffman technique, which was created to help women breastfeed with flat or inverted nipples.

I was not with my baby during my hospital stay and just as my colostrum was coming, I was readmitted to the hospital and was too sick/weak to resume pumping. I did lose the skin to skin contact with her for about 10 days.

Right now I’m on antibiotics and OB said that I won’t be able to breastfeed. Should I still try to have her skin to skin? So far, only a little milk (less than a teaspoon) comes with each 30 min pumping session. Would it be safe still to have skin to skin and for my baby to latch when the doctor said the antibiotics is too strong?

Does anyone have an approximate timing for milk to come in?

It’s definitely the worse of my life time right now as everything I had planned is now out the window. With the complication, I still have hematoma in me but the doctors all say that it will be reabsorbed back into the body, but will take several months. :(

I will try to hand massage my breasts more but I don’t feel them engorged like I had prior to readmission. :(

Oh you poor thing, that sounds horrific and from a physical standpoint alone must be making you feel dreadful, let alone with all the emotional elements to take on board.

Can I ask what antibiotics you are on? There is an incredible pharmacist called Wendy Jones (correct me if I’m wrong fellow posters!) at the Breastfeeding Network who is supremely knowledgeable on all things related to medication safety with breastfeeding and she may be able to give guidance on whether the antibiotics are indeed incompatible with breastfeeding. Worth a google. I would hate to think that you have been given incorrect information.

How many days post partum are you now?

Personally I would keep going with the skin to skin as much as you can manage as it will help with eventual relactation and also be quite healing I imagine after being separated from her.

Sending a hug from afar as I can only guess at how low you must be feeling. Hope you have lots of support in real life.

@Millie2013 hi Millie, can you let me know around how long it took for milk to come?

@Puddlelane123 I am currently on amoxicillin clavulan pot 875/125mg for 10 days. OB said it’s a broad spectrum antibiotic. And yes it was very horrific because there’s a no visitor policy so I was battling myself in the hospital. Those were my darkest moments. Lots of cries, lots of negative thoughts. Even though I was able to video chat with my husband and daughter, it was very tough. Despair.

@MaternitySupportWorker I’ve been slowly in taking more food and drinking lots of fluid. My legs were really swollen from having two back to back major abdominal surgeries within a week. I now feel hungry in the middle of the night when I get up to pump.

I'm sorry to hear about everything you have been through tedster1022
I don't have much to add to the good advice that many have already given you, but your obstetrician has given rather odd advice in saying that yiu can't breastfeed on that antibiotic. Co-amoxiclav is a very common broad spectrum antibiotic and generally considered safe in breastfeeding mothers. I took it for tonsillitis whilst breastfeeding and one of my own babies was given it directly at an early age.
If you do an internet search you will find lots of information on safety of antibiotics in breastfeeding but I appreciate you probably dont feel up to doing that yet so here are a couple ofvreputable sources to start with.
www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/antibiotics/
www.nhs.uk/medicines/co-amoxiclav/
Unfortunately not all doctors are very knowledgeable about breastfeeding and quite often give out of date advice that prevents a mother from breastfeeding when it would in fact be quite safe. I would suggest you seek another opinion if you are unsure, as your milk is much more likely to come in if baby can feed directly. You might also want to try hand expressing colostrum instead of using a pump. Because colostrum is so thick and sticky it tends to get stuck to pump parts so it seems like nothing is coming out. Then you can end up making your breasts sore with the pump because you arectrying a bit too hard. If you decide to give your baby the colostrum then you will probably waste less if you hand express too.
Eat well, drink plenty, and rest. And above all, be kind to yourself and enjoy your baby. I am as pro breastfeeding as they come, BUT I do not believe that how you feed your baby defines how good a mother you are - there us a lot more to it than that. I am not trying to put you off - I think you are absolutely wonderful for even wanting to try after all you have been through and I really hope that you get the support you need to get breastfeeding established. Just don't focus on it to the detriment of your own health. You have been through a terrible experience both physically and mentally and you need to heal. Make sure that is your top priority as baby needs you to be well.
Hood luck, and get well soon.

@MrsAvocet has given you very sensible advice so have very little to add.

As she says, Co-Amoxiclav is an antibiotic which is routinely used in breastfeeding mothers and indeed in tiny babies themselves, often at high doses intravenously. So much much higher quantities than the negligible amounts that would pass through to your daughter in breast milk. At the very most it might give her a bit of an upset stomach but even that is unlikely. Are you in the UK? i ask because I am just so suprised at the advice of you OB and very disappointed for you as it will undoubtedly have made things harder for you.

Get your daughter on the breast as much as you feel able to today, and try to do lots of skin to skin. Personally I would stop using the pump to extract the colostrum and either do it by hand or let your daughter do the work herself. She is still young enough that by putting her on your chest she will instinctively find the breast herself if you use gravity to help and lie in a semi reclining position.

You sound like an absolute warrior to come through such an ordeal.

Hello, sorry you’ve had a rough time. I had a bleed and blood transfusion with my first child. It was perfectly safe to bf but not particularly easy. The blood transfusions and the fact that you’ve been so poorly can all affect the hormones for milk production as others have said.

My baby also spent a few days in special care which didn’t help. There were no beds for mums in special care so I ended up sleeping in a chair next to her cot a lot of the time and exhaustion can also affect things...

My milk took ages to come in and because they were monitoring her fluid levels they started to get concerned. I was literally being milked by midwives but still only had colostrum rather than milk coming out which I had to try and catch in syringes to feed into her. I was given pumps to stimulate milk flow but that was exhausting in its own way.

It’s worth remembering that you have been incredibly poorly and in any other circumstances you would be in bed resting after loosing such a lot of blood. I was still so anaemic that my body felt like lead and I got palpitations and breathless all the time. With hindsight it wasn’t at all surprising that my milk was affected and breast feeding was a struggle.

In my case, the doctors insisted on formula top ups as my baby wasn’t getting enough milk. I felt like a failure at that point - stupid I know but I was exhausted and couldn’t rationalise things.

When we got home breast feeding continued to be a struggle. My milk did finally come in it still not enough and my baby was constantly unsettled and wasn’t putting on enough weight. I had to keep a diary of how long she’s fed for or how much she’d been topped up with. In the end I only lasted a month breastfeeding with top ups then gave up as I was done. I felt awful about it at the time but I needed to enjoy my baby and not worry whether she was getting enough food. Plus, I didn’t know it at the time but mums who have needed blood transfusions can be at greater risk of PND and post- traumatic stress. I think I was probably suffering without realising.

Second time around I had no bleed, no blood transfusions and a very different experience. I’m not sure if this will help much but I spent hours hooked up to breast pumps for very little gain. I know that everyone’s different but after all you’ve been through, I would say be kind to yourself. Express as much as you can but not at the expense of your own health (I stupidly was doing it all hours of the day and night). Get some rest, get as much help as you can and look into some supplements that will boost your iron levels. Not only is that stuff important for milk supply but you’ll feel a whole lot better for it too. Good luck! X

How are you doing OP?

@MrsAvocet , thank you very much for the link. I'm not sure why the OB would say it's not safe for breastfeeding. other than the actual strength of the antibiotics, it does seem safe. I'm in Canada and perhaps they have different breastfeeding guidelines.

@TiredMummyXYZ thank you for sharing your experience. I think I'm going through the same right now. I have been pumping quite around the clock (every 2-3 hours) and after a day, I was only able to pump out about only 2oz of breast milk. It's very discouraging to see the result. Although it's progress but my husband had asked whether it's really worth it. whether it's worth jeopardizing my rest time since I'm hooked up to the pump around the clock.

Currently my husband is my daughter's sole caregiver even though I'm home recovering. I'm really trying my best to at least be able to do something for my daughter which is to provide breast milk.

I'd love to have more skin to skin with my daughter but right now, even the brushing of my shirt over my abdomen hurts (feels more like skin pain). The doctor said it should go away in time but I just feel so frustrated as if nothing is really 'recovering' at the moment. Whether the skin pain will go away is a mystery. Will I forever be living with this pain?

To be quite frank, I am getting scared as each day goes by. I worry about the hematoma that's still in me that could be infected; afraid my white blood count will rise again once I stop the antibiotics; wondering when I will be able to stop taking pain medication around the clock; when my bowel movements will be back to normal; when will the skin pain go away and so many more....

I'm confused as to what really happened.. June 17th was the happiest moment when our daughter came to this world and then the worst began. Is the worst over? Remaining positive and focusing on the present has become overwhelmingly difficult. I'm constantly reminding myself that I've had two major abdominal surgeries and recovery will not be fast. Perhaps it's all the unknown.....

@Puddlelane123 I'm really trying to hang in there but it's so hard... tears will sometimes just come running down.. it seems very difficult to get out of this rut..

Hello mum’s. As an update, finally figured out what I have ....... I have Acquired hemophilia as a complication because of my pregnancy. It’s been a long journey since the start of my symptoms. Right now I’m being treated and hoping for proper recovery.

I just came across your thread and didn't want to read and run. What an awful month and a half you have had. I can't imagine how hard that must have been, especially when you were in hospital on your own. I'm glad you have a diagnosis finally and are recieving treatment. I hope you are able to get support with the mental health side as well if you feel you need it, after going through such a trauma. Hugs

Hi, tedster I hope you are feeling a bit better

I am also in Canada if I can help with anything specific to here. I had several units of blood and a few different antibiotics after a complicated c-section. I didn't have all the complications you did, but the side effect I did notice was that the antibiotics totally wiped out my GI system. I had horrendous diarrhea for about a week and lost a lot of weight. If you're still taking antibiotics it might be worth getting some probiotics and trying to eat plenty of yogurt. Looking back I'm not sure how I got through that time, but I did and I managed to breastfeed successfully.

Wishing you a speedy recovery

@MedicineHat

I had an instrumental delivery but had several transfusions and the same reaction to antibiotics. It was an awful few weeks but also managed to sucessfully breastfeed.

I also struggled to eat or find the motivation I guess, to actually eat properly at the time too.