Milk never came in?

[FluffySunshineBunny]

I was wondering if anyone else had the same experience, but my milk never came in.

I had a baby 6 weeks ago, I had a traumatic labour and was unwell afterwards. They took my baby away for checks and gave her formula. When the nurses brought her back I had a little colostrum, she nursed a bit. Her latch was checked and was said to be ok. But after we got home, my milk never came in, she ended up dehydrated and we were told to give formula.

I pumped, power pumped and kept nursing but after the first week, my baby never latched. I also never produced much through pumping, 10ml - 30ml a day. I started crying during pumping sessions which made me produce even less. I was never engorged, never leaked anything, my breasts never felt any different.

Has anyone else never had their milk come in? I feel so lonely, everyone else I know has managed to breastfeed even if only for a few months. I only managed 4 weeks.

[balloonsintrees]

Never came in for either of my children. My mum's didn't either for any of us 3.
She developed a life long hatred of the NCT because of their utterly vile attitude and behaviour towards her as she couldn't breast feed.
I don't have any time for them either due the same attitudes now.

[Howzaboutye]

Ah well there you go op.
If you had been given a blood transfusion it might have been different. However birth is such a big event in itself, and it is underrated for its impact on a woman's body imo.

If you had such low energy for walking etc, then your body was recovering from a majorly traumatic event. If you had had the same injuries from a car crash noone would be expecting you to learn a brand new skill, while being sleep deprived and stressed out.

Really glad you are feeling better about it all. Glad you posted on how you are feeling.
You are doing amazing!

[Kippure]

Be kind to yourself, OP. My milk never came in at all. I used a supplemental nursing system (hang a container of milk around your neck, tape tubes to your nipples to get the baby to stimulate by sucking) and pumped for eight weeks, producing no more either way than an occasional drop, before eventually giving up miserably. And total strangers were really nasty on a few occasions about me formula feeding in public.

No trauma at birth and blood tests didn’t reveal anything particularly out of kilter hormonal. It just didn’t work.

The only thing I wish I’d done differently is to give up sooner. It would have made the first two months of DS’s life far more pleasant.

[Mumoftwoinprimary]

It happened to Melanie in Gone with the Wind. One of the other women had to feed the baby. Caused by a very traumatic birth.

[Megan2018]

@FluffySunshineBunny my thyroid function was found to be wonky after I had routine bloods taken to check for diabetes (I had gestational diabetes so had follow up checks). My baby was small and unaffected by GD but she did lose a lot of weight in the first 2 weeks despite feeding like mad. Fortunately I had amazing BF support and she caught up but it was some months later I found out about the thyroid (which corrected itself after a year) and the GP said I was fortunate it hadn’t stopped my BF. It might be worth trying to get a check just to see.

I’m not claiming there’s always a health reason behind low supply but it’s more likely to have a physical cause than to be entirely fluke. My Mum wasn’t able to BF me, but BF my brother a few years later. Both were EMCS but I was the “worst” one (more blood loss, smaller baby, very jaundiced etc). My mum always thought it was because she took so long to recover. No-one can tell now which of us was the BF one though-arguably I’m the healthier one tbh!

I’m hugely pro BF and wish there was more support and societal encouragement, but if I’d needed to FF I wouldn’t hesitate.

If I let myself I could beat myself up all day that DD won’t have a sibling (DH and I met late and now too old). But I can’t change it so what’s the point? FF instead of BF has much less impact on your baby than my inability to have a second child will have on mine. I’ve made peace with it though so hope you can too.

[PaySeeWhiTa]

My sister had an easy, natural birth but her milk never came in. After two weeks of solid pumping etc she had produced 10ml total in all that time. She has a very happy formula fed now toddler and expecting her second. She is going straight on to formula for this one and is looking forward to not losing the first weeks of her baby's life to stressing about it.
There is so much more that makes you a mother than being an udder, you are not a failure.

[DrJump]

I wonder if you might benefit from a debrief with a breastfeeding counsellor. There are some parts of your birth and breastfeeding story where it sounds like you were let down by the health professionals around you, it also sounds like you may have some physiological things contributing too. It can be helpful to put to bed those niggles so you can focus on you and your baby.

[user1488481370]

This happened to me with DD3 (now 5 weeks old) she ended up with jaundice and we were readmitted to hospital. She was so lethargic in the end that she wouldn’t even wake for feeds so they had to give her an NG tube to administer feeds which really frightened me. They had me on a hospital grade breast pump for 20 minutes on each breast every 2 hours to try and get my milk to come in. Eventually they also tried to get baby to nurse in between pumps. It was fucking exhausting. Investing soo much time and effort and seeing absolutely no milk collect in those containers was soul destroying. It’s bizarre as I’d managed to BF my two eldest girls and my milk always came in on day 3 with them, my eldest was jaundiced too.

Bizarre. DD3 continued to lose weight and I felt under so much pressure to BF but I was watching my baby decline before my eyes which was horrendous. I take my hat off to anyone whose endured that and managed to continue BF.