Has this happened to you? Breastfeeding 'support' led my baby to hospital

[alomath]

This was my experience of trying to exclusively breastfeed. It objectively harmed my baby and traumatised me. Has this, or something similar, happened to anyone else?

My baby was born at 40w+1d from a forceps delivery after a long (induced) labour. I had gestational diabetes but other than that a normal pregnancy. She was born healthy.

I wanted to exclusively breastfeed and in hospital I was seen and given advice on latching/breastfeeding from multiple healthcare professionals (midwives, nurses and infant feeding team). I was told her latch was good and to keep going.

After approxmately 36 hours we were discharged. I struggled to breastfeed at home (cluster feeding, rarely settling). The midwife visited on day 2 and told me this was normal and to keep going.

On days 3 and 4 things kept getting worse. By day 4 her nappies were not heavy and she hadn't pooed in 24 hours (but she was still producing the 'normal' amlount of wet and soiled nappies, according to the information I got from the NHS trust where she was born). Her cry was becoming high pitched. I called the national breastfeeding helpline and was told everything I was going through 'seemed normal' and was given advice about latching. I wasn't convinced, so I called my local infant feeding team, who told me on the phone (again) that all of this was normal. Nevertheless, they offered to send someone to my home to see me feeding. That person came, told me her latch looked very good and advised me to express to top up. She also pointed out my baby's lips were dry, but didn't make much of it. I pointed out I didn't think my milk had 'come in', but again she didn't seem to make much of this. I tried expressing but nothing came out.

On day 5 the midwife came to for the routine health visit. She weighed my daughter and realised she had lost >20% of her birth weight and her jaundice had gotten worse. The midwide told us to rush to A&E.

In A&E, they immediately gave her formula and she was instantly a different baby (much more settled). We stayed for a few days to ensure she was feeding and gaining weight. However, her weight loss had been so dramatic that the doctors wanted to rule out an infectious disease, so she had profilactic intravenous antibiotics + blood, urine and even a lumbar puncture to look for infections. Everything came back negative, it was just underfeeding. Her diagnoses were hypernatremic dehydration which had led to a metabolic acidosis and hypoglycaemia.

I was traumatised by this. I basically starved my baby for her first 5 days of life, in great part because of professionals who reassured me everything was OK when it clearly wasn't. I feel awful and I don't think the guilt will ever go away. But I also feel angry at everyone who pressured me to breastfeed, even when it was going so badly (my baby was clearly dehydrated!).

My baby was exclusively formula-fed since then and is - so far - healthy.

The doctor who discharged my baby told me she often saw babies like this. Has anything like this ever happened to you?

I'm so sorry OP. This sounds traumatising. I BF without problem- I actually had an oversupply and my babies were soaked in milk but any signs of difficultly or anything and formula it was. I don't know why people are BF or bust. A fed baby is best ffs. We need to provide a balanced view re: BF and be very realistic that it's now for everyone and that's okay. Have you accessed any therapy? Be prepared to be very angry. I am on your behalf.

Yes. She had undiagnosed reflux.
Admitted after 4 weeks with failure to thrive by both Doc and HV the weight loss was so accurate despite feeding almost constantly,then regurgitating everything.
Told by the Pedi Doc that I was worrying as a first time mother.
Sent home.
Tried for another week.
HV came to check and sent me straight back. She went to our Doctors Surgery to pick up the admissions letter herself and bought it back.
The Pedi word said is wasn't reflux it was possibly meningitis so took her away for a spinal tap. They looked me and DH in the eye as if the procedure was a threat to check I wasn't hysterical .
We heard her scream and cry.
She spent a week in a side room with me and DH being monitored and fed through a tube. I was expressing almost constantly to provide the milk to go into the tube.
Everyone could see it wasn't working.
After 48 hours of constant monitoring and an email to PALS they finally checked and found the the sphincter at the top of her stomach wasn't quite working.
Lots of falling over backwards to proscribe two drugs to help her.
Used Anti Reflux formula as soon as we were discharged.
Sometimes, it's not the 'latch' or the technique it's a genuine medical reason why an adult human female isn't able to feed her child.
I always remember another mum having to feed her reflux baby 2 mil of breast milk every 15 minutes on the main ward. She was a wreck.
I made another complaint to PALS after the consultant answered my question with : 'Up to you. Formula or breast. Are you going to use the drugs? Because this is just what lots of first time mothers go through'.
Luckily I was recording the conversation in case I had to listen again if I'd missed detail about dosage etc.
So I will always rail against 'breast is best ' because the dogma made a distressing situation dangerous.

Yep. My DS was born 3 weeks early (induced due to waters trickling, not that anyone believed me). Struggled to establish breastfeeding, midwife never came to visit. Went to the Doc who said the jaundice was normal and he'd flush it out. Midwife eventually came a week later, said he'd lost 20% of birth weight. Had to be rushed to hospital where DS was put under a UV lamp and tube fed. We spent nearly a week there.
An investigation was launched into our aftercare (which was shocking). It took me a long time to get over that.
We ended up breastfeeding for 3 years.

If I'd been stronger I would have kicked off, but I was an absolute state.

Yes pretty much the same for us.

I said to multiple people I didn't think he was getting any milk to be told oh yes latch is good. When I said I was going to give him formula three days in I was told that was the worst thing I could do.

Poor thing ate nipple cream for the first week I think. I thank the lord for an excellent (locum) health visitor on day 7 who insisted on hospital as he'd lost 20% of birth weight. He seemed well (though not sleeping) at that point but she insisted and we live an hour from hospital.

Within three hours he was in a really bad state so lucky we were in hospital.

The first night in hospital after he fought feeding tubes and cannulation and then downed a bottle of milk he went into such a deep sleep he triggered the heart monitor and a crash team ran in.

Awful so no, I don't entirely subscribe to breast is best and resent things that make you feel bad for it. He was a transformed baby on formula and has been a very healthy child. Without formula I think he'd have died. I never produced any more than a tiny quantity even hooked up to hospital grade pumps for hours.

The irony of baby number two being too lazy to drink more than a few mouthfuls of milk I definitely had second time round wasn't lost.

Re: c-sections- everyone is different and our bodies will behave in different ways. My babies were born via EMCS and as I said above, I had too much milk- I was always showering, changing and my mattress was ruined. The advice needs to be balanced and the negatives of BF- establishing supply, affect on MH from cluster feeding, etc. need to be discussed more.

This made me cry. I'm so sorry you went through this :(

Please know you are not alone in this. Look up the fed is best foundation. The WHOs push toward breastfeeding has put countless babies lives at risk and some have sadly died as a result of this. You were neglected and so was your baby, all in the name of breastfeeding - it’s insane. No way do the ends justify the means. I am so sorry this happened to you.

See this was the attitude I had before birth. I was prepared to try breastfeeding but open to formula.

But in the hormonal, completely sleep deprived state with a baby that couldn't be put down for more than an hour at the time, I listened to health visitors telling me formula was the worst thing I could do.

I don't know why. It seems irrational now but the pressure when you are at the centre of it is awful. I was definitely nothing like my usual self in that moment.

Thank you for sharing this. It must be so difficult for you to stand by in these situations or face losing your job!

I’m so sorry you had this experience, I’m also sure this experience is also very common, sadly. I’m reading a book called Matrescence (by Lucy jones) at the moment and I’d really recommend. It’s making me feel far less alone in experiencing everything I did around pregnancy / childbirth / looking after a baby. She had a very similar experience to you with breast-feeding and discusses the whole obsession the nhs has with breastfeeding (ie if it works then great, if it’s not working the nhs as an organisation needs to be better at reading the signs and acting earlier, it’s just crazy that they don’t) x

It's so odd that the NHS is so attached to the exclusive feeding rules. There are quite a lot of countries that have better long term BF rates in which women are encouraged to combi feed in hospital if baby isn't getting it - it helps prevent jaundice and can be done very successfully if trying to bf first and topping up and it is perfectly possible to pump and syringe feed colostrum to ensure good benefits there. I wish I had topped up in hospital, as it would have made such a difference for my son in the early days

The same happened to me with my first baby in 2015. It was horrendous and as soon as I gave him formula he was a different baby. It later turned out he had a tongue tie which I had repeatedly ask to be checked but was missed until a lactation consultant noticed it. TBH after it was cut it made no difference as I am certain that my milk never came in anyway and my baby could not latch due to inverted nipples on my part!! I felt so demoralised but felt I had to keep breastfeeding at all costs which I felt was supported by numerous professionals. At one point it was suggested I express into a 5ml syringe and feed him this way. He was a 9lb 4 baby. When I had my second child in 2018 I was very flat that my baby would be having formula and there was no discussion about that so I thought that things had changed but clearly not. The only professional who gave me sound advice was a lovely gp who I saw because I had an infection who said that there was nothing wrong with formula. But I felt so guilty I remember thinking I could never have another child as I couldn’t bear to go back and not be able to breastfeed again! I am so sorry that you have been through this too and more, and I am so sorry that things haven’t changed for the better.

I didn't breastfeed any of our 3 DC. They are 9, 7 and 5 now and have all been settled, good sleepers, healthy and happy children. I was pressured each time and just said no. Formula feeding was much easier and they are all doing very well. I don't feel at all guilty. Dh was able to feed them from the start and he loved that.

Bloody hell the stories on here are horrific.

Breastfeeding advice is SO muddled, disjointed and messed up. I managed to BF mine but was told so much bullshit and handwaved away, told to try the rugby hold, don't use nipple shields, so many comments by people who weren't really engaging and I had no idea if my baby was drinking anything at first.

But nothing compared to stories on here. Surely when all these babies are going back to hospital underweight they might think about a "prevention rather than cure" approach?

My NCT person phoned a couple of weeks after I'd had my first baby to see if he'd arrived. When I explained that he was breech and I'd had a cesarean she said " Oh dear, oh well never mind, you can do it properly next time". I'd had hyperemesis all through the pregnancy and weighed under 7 stone the day after I'd had him. My body had no fat to produce milk with. So I was a failure there too. Ended up with PND. It was all awful. First baby is about to be 32 but I've never forgotten how the midwives and NCT people behaved.

I had the opposite problem! I went to the jaundice clinic on day 5 to check DD's levels were still going down nicely and they weighed her there to save me going to a midwife appointment later that day. She'd lost 7% of her body weight and the registrar told me it was dangerous she needed a formula feeding plan immediately.

It was my first child and I was feeling quite vulnerable but suggested that I had read that weight loss was normal and I didn't want to put her on a feeding plan as I didn't want to interrupt establishing breastfeeding. He said he would get a member of the infant feeding team to educate me. I heard him on the phone to them outside (only his side) and heard him say "oh so that's ok? That's not dangerous?" Then he came back in the room and told me that they were too busy to see me but yes I needed the feeding plan.

I called my midwife and she obviously said he was an idiot and 7% was fine. I'm so glad I didn't just trust him and go and buy formula because I think we would have really struggled with breastfeeding after that! I'm still feeding her now at 16 months.

Same has just happened to us, OP. I'm sad to say it happened with both children. Over-zealous bf support who both times (different hosps) dismissed my worries over insufficient glandular tissue and did the same, telling me she had a good latch and all sounded normal. Horrific. Breast is best to the point of prioritising establishing milk over feeding the baby itself.

Safe to say despite a 13% weightless with DC1 and 16% with DC2 just last week, they got back to birthweight very quickly on formula. We're like sponges but the image of them so hungry and thin is a horrible memory.

Well done you for recognising you and your baby have been wronged. This isn't on you - it'sad to be fed false info and hope at a very vulnerable time.

I fully agree with this. I combi fed my second. She probably could have been exclusively fed as my supply was entirely different but there was no way I was putting myself through the anxiety and it was easier with a three mile walk to preschool.

I was quite anaemic before birth, it was incredibly quick and I lost a lot of blood. My supply may have come but pushing myself to the point of total exhaustion certainly didn't support that.

I was told always breast first but he got so annoyed with it (he was a baby that necked milk not a snacker) and it became impossible on a two hourly feeding schedule.

I think a bit of formula to calm him then breast would have been better in hindsight. After another week I just couldn't wake up every two hours and just gave him what he wanted, which was a bottle.

I was breastfed but my mum has always said I was taken away (in the 80s) for the first couple of nights. I asked what I was fed and she said 'i suppose they gave you a bottle '.

I don't think the importance of recovery is properly considered as part of the breastfeeding conversation.

I’m sorry you had such a tough experience. I had similar feelings of guilt after my son’s birth. I successfully breastfed my first DC for over two years. So when I had DC 2 I was expecting breastfeeding to be fine and I felt confident that I could manage and recognise the issues. I then had a very unexpected emergency c-section as my son’s cord had a true knot. My milk did not really come in! He was sleepy and wasn’t really feeding. He just didn’t gain any weight. I was quite traumatized by the birth as he nearly died and I’m sure that had an impact.

It was the tail end of Covid so just wasn’t the face to face drop in support that I accessed with my first. I felt like there was no one available to help. I was being referred back to hospital to have him weighed almost daily as he was losing weight (he lost 13% and was borderline for readmission) but with no real supportive plan to get feeding back on track. It was at this point I had to concede and give formula.

Pure luck that I managed to get hold of the lady who had led some of the local breastfeeding support services that no longer ran and she very kindly came round to my house and helped me make a plan. I rented a double pump, pumped and bottle fed round the clock, drank breast milk enhancing teas and ate the cookies whilst pumping at 4am. It took two weeks of what was a pretty hellish regime of feeding and pumping, phasing formula back out then my milk was sufficient and we were back to exclusive breastfeeding. I fed him for two years plus as well. It took me a long time to leave behind the guilt that I had effectively starved him because I had been so reluctant to introduce any formula.

I can tell you now, if this had been my first baby, I wouldn’t have been able to continue with breastfeeding and I wouldn’t have known what to do or had the confidence to come up with this plan. The support was completely inadequate. There needs to be hands on, face to face, local support available daily in order to help with the challenges of establishing feeding.

@ThomussTank I absolutely agree with you. The system fails new mothers in many ways over and over again.

I think some of it might be to do with WHO accreditation schemes? When DD1 was in NICU / SCBU, she was cleared to go home providing she was gaining a certain amount per day. She was not reaching this on bf alone and we were still in hospital days later. Eventually in masses of tears, I asked for some formula and a very nice nurse practically ran to get it for me. From what I could gather, under the gold accreditation (if I've remembered that rightly?!) she wasn't allowed to suggest formula, but if i asked for it, she could provide it. It sounds like a completely reactionary approach to the low bf rates in the UK, but for someone dealing with all the stresses of a poorly baby, it was awful to think we could have been home sooner if someone had just suggested a bit of formula to me!

Good grief

Reading all these stories brings it all back. My dd1 born in 2013 was readmitted on day 3 with jaundice and poor feeding. I'd had a 3 day induction with an assisted birth and was really in no fit state to decide what on earth was best. We went back in through a&e and were told suspected meningitis, she had a lumbar puncture and put on antibiotics. They then fed her through an ng tube. I was encouraged to pump to get my supply going. The whole thing was a nightmare. She was basically a jaundiced baby who needed fluids and had to go under the lights. When we were discharged I had to feed her every 2 hours. I kept a log and basically it was a continuous round of feeding, winding, settle for perhaps an hour then feed again. I've never felt so wretched in my life and my whole first time mum experience was completely tainted by this. I somehow persisted with the bf and managed it for 17 months but looking back I should have considered ff for my dd as the whole bf experience was so tough and made me feel so very anxious. Dd2 was combi fed and it made me feel more relaxed about her feeding routine. The pressure to bf is considerable and can have such an impact on new mum's experiences.

@CLEO42 Exactly this, we are not allowed to suggest it but if you ask for it then we can support that choice.