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 asked them to do this when I was in hospital with DD having dry nappies (that they didn't believe were dry), and they refused to do it.

It would have been so simple.

I have to ask though, a lot of mums seem to be told the latch is good. But there is only one way to tell if a latch is really good and that is to watch a whole feed. Watch the baby latch on feed and then latch off. How many actually had that experience I wonder! Or did a midwife just watch the baby in the middle of a feed. This doesn't tell you enough about the latch to tell you if it is a good latch or not.

I still think the biggest issue is total lack of traning. If there where actually trained breastfeeding supporters on every ward (let the midwifes do there job) then less of these issues would be a problem.

Also note that a lot of women on this thread had traumatic births and blood infusion or birth interventions. It is well known that issues like this can delay milk coming in, due the mother needing to recover. But how many HPC's are taking this into consideration 🤔.

It's not always considered a very accurate way of judging feeding as baby could wee or poo during a feed. Although some expert lactation consultants do use this method still. I've seen DrJackNewman do it on some of his videos.

I think you want an expert using this method so they new exactly what they where doing.

I found the opposite. Drs and midwives pushing formula top ups to everyone just so they could say baby was fed and not have to bother with supporting. BF is so much harder to start and establish rather than just chucking a bottle at baby.

Sadly quite a few friends lost their supply or baby started to refuse nippple because of this.

I think there needs to be much more educated bf support and funding put towards it. We all know the benefits and it's a shame so there's so much push towards formula. Especially surprising these days we are so aware of UPFs in our diet but want to give tiny new babies the most processed thing available.

very Similar happened to me 10 years ago. I’ve had to delete a lot of photos of my child as a young baby because it upset me to see them so skinny and struggling.

I gasped when I read this. I can't believe I'm not the only one. I haven't deleted the photos because I can't look at them. But the other day my phone brought up some photos "look at these lovely memories" of her first few days and I started sobbing uncontrollably.

The only way

I am so suprised that so many of you went through the same, and some quite a while ago. Why is this still going on?? Why aren't we all protesting in the streets?? Our newborns were harmed ffs! I actually thougth I was going to get a lot of criticism on this thread for daring to criticise BF support.

And to those who are suggesting that "better" BF support is needed - I disagree. I think the amount of examples in this thread shows that this is an inevitable consequence of a "breast is best" message, which allows for no nuance (and actively stops professionals from suggesting potentially life saving interventions apparently!). When professionals are only driven by one target - increase BF rates - then these negative consequences are inevitable.

And in my personal case, the infant feeding team member did come to my house, watched a whole feed, and pointed out my baby had dry lips; I've since been told she has aver 25 years experience; the team she is part of is award-winning and BFI-accredited; and still, she advised me to keep trying to BF.

I believe we need to change the "breast is best" message, and that needs to start by giving parents ALL THE INFORMATION they need to decide how to feed their newborns. That includes the risks of trying to exclusively BF (well documented in the scientific literature, I have since found out) and the signs of when BF is not going well.

Yes, this happened to us. Shedloads of BFIng support in hospital - was in for 3 days after the birth with midwives checking latch and a lactation consultant on the infant feeding team - but nobody prepared to admit the reality that there was no sign my milk was coming in and my baby was starving. We went home for two dreadful nights when she cried non-stop and fed and fed and fed. Calls to helplines we were fobbed off with false reassurance and a midwife home visit was patronising and useless. Then were readmitted as baby was seriously ill with dehydration. By then she was too weak to suck and had to be tube fed formula. She only narrowly avoided brain damage or worse.

I wish they'd educate women that not everyone can EBF and what the signs of milk delay are, plus the risk factors for it. Turns out I should never have been encouraged to attempt EBF. Also the anti-formula attitudes in the NHS and aversion to using it need stopping!

This was the terrible policy that was in force at the hospital where I had my baby. It really needs to be stopped now before any more babies are harmed (and mums' mental health).

Are there any hospitals that aren't accredited by Baby Friendly? It was such a bad experience I don't think I'd feel safe having another baby in one. But not sure how easy they are to avoid.

It happened to me and my son, too (I'm not in the UK, so procedures will probably differ and sorry if I use wrong expressions).
When you have a baby here, a midwife comes to visit you every day for the first few weeks. Mine was very young and inexperienced and very much "breast ist best" and my DS was chubby, so she didn't worry when he started losing weight.
In the first two weeks, her answer to everything was to breastfeed more. After 14 days when he had lost quite a bit of weight I was told to stay in bed with him and feed him all the time. I pretty much did this for 24 hours and when he still had lost weight after that, my midwife asked an older colleague who told her to send us to hospital.
The doctor there became really angry and said she saw it all the time, hungry crying babies, exhausted and desperate mothers, and midwives who kept saying "breastfeed more."

My son was given formula, started gaining weight from this night on and I managed to also breastfeed until he was 9 months old.

I don't feel traumatized but I get so angry when I think about it. I should have done it differently, but I was tired and confused and wanted the best for my baby. I feel like I trusted somebody who put their personal beliefs above this individual child's need

Surely that wouldn't matter so long as the nappy isn't changed between the two weighings?

That's good you found it much easier to breastfeed. My comment, and this whole thread, was about what to do when breastfeeding is difficult or not working

There is a lot of pressure for mothers to breastfeed. I'll always remember 2 years ago immediately after my Daughter was born one of the midwife's (not the one that delivered mine) asked me if I intended on breastfeeding, I said yes as I wanted to anyway, and her response was "that's the right answer".
Looking back I wish I had said something because I feel that it wasn't ok to say that. Immediately when she said it I was a bit taken a back. I'm not sure what her attitude would have been like if I'd have said no I'm not.
They will literally do anything to make you not give up. If baby is tongue tied you only get it snipped if you're breastfeeding (in my region anyway). As one of the nurses told me to just say I'm breast-feeding to get it snipped, otherwise they won't do it. I don't agree with that either tbh.
Everyone knows the benefits of breastfeeding which is why they are so pushy about it. but like a pp said, when it goes great yes it works well, but when it doesn't then there is nothing wrong with offering formula instead.

Pretty sure tongue ties are quite common too. Not sure of the stats but they can cause no end of problems for BFing particularly of course. I know many whose babies were told they didn't have one by midwives and it only came to light weeks down the line when both mum and baby were both far from thriving.

So angry on behalf of you all.

Same thing happened to me in 2008. She thrived once she was in hospital and given formula. I was so brainwashed by the whole thing I carried on mixed feeling until I finally packed up bfing altogether at 6 months.

My second started going down the same road so I packed it in.

I don't care what anyone says about it getting easier, my tits just didn't seem to produce much milk.

@RidingMyBike 95% of maternity units are BFI accredited with 44% being ‘gold’ so fully accredited. The NHS long term plan wants this at 100%.

It's not rare at all OP we were sent in to A&E day for weight loss and the doc said we were the third family with same issue she'd seen that day. I'd by lying if I said it didn't traumatise me not having given my baby enough food . I can say a year on that baby is doing great and I'm feeling less bad about it as I met quite a few people who had the same thing happen. I do think the support after birth can be very poor my midwife was on holiday and we had cover midwives who spent most of the visit telling me how they were so senior and important. Your baby will be fine x please try to relax but I agree especially as you sensed something was wrong and flagged it you've been let down by the system

Oh crikey @CatchingBabies that's awful. So almost impossible to avoid these hospitals if you have a baby? The one that made my baby so ill was accredited at gold level!

Our experience was nowhere near as bad (in part I think because I had 2 litres of saline during labour so the weight loss looked more dramatic than it was which stopped baby getting ill).

Does anyone know where this statistic I keep seeing that 99% of women have adequate milk supply? From the number of posts I've seen on Mumsnet it doesn't seem like that's true!

Has anyone ever found out why they didn't have enough milk? I've never been able to find anything about why it happens, and for all the 'breast is best' in the NHS, they don't care why women are struggling with it.

I decided to formula feed from day one - had to be very assertive when pressed by midwives to try breastfeeding. Hospital staff need to support all feeding methods - I’d never made up a bottle before, fed a baby or changed a nappy - requests for help were rejected. Formula is amazing and shouldn’t be rejected as an alternative.

I had twins and similar happened, 36w I had actually planned to mix feed but they just barfed up formula. Milk allergy. I had bf before and was bf so they re not keen to supplement breast milk with prescription formula. I spent five days in a ward getting weight up and endless pumping. I did go on to bf till one but my god I was knackered think 4yo plus toddler plus doing all the endless night feeds. So v v sleep deprived.

Similar thing happened to me though less extreme - at the A&E I saw a doctor not a midwife and she basically told me to mixed feed (i.e. top up with formula after breast milk) after which all good. Midwives focus way too much on exclusive breastfeeding and then freak you out when it isn't working. Over time I then worked out that my baby had 100% tongue tie which is probably part of the reason for all that.

Just wanted to add my voice to this also. I'm in Ireland so a different system but similarly very pro-breastfeeding. I was very keen to EBF and also had GD so the additional benefits had been hammered into me (lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes for both my baby and myself).

I also struggled with my supply. My son lost 11% of his birth weight 2 days after his birth and I had to bring him back as an outpatient for monitoring twice (at 3 days old and 5 days old).

I fed around the clock, pumped, ate special cookies and drank teas, saw a lactation consultant and fed through the agony of a blocked duct / mastitis and yet at his 2 week checkup (which was done by my GP) she was very concerned that he'd only gained 80 grams in over a week. My public health nurse was amazing and came out the same day to weigh him on her scales and made a mixed feeding plan with me.

The first time we gave our son formula I honestly felt such failure and anxiety about it, my husband had to feed him, I couldn't bear to. I wish I could visit my post partum self and show her my fantastic toddler who has smashed every single milestone and is in the best of health.

I have no idea why the benefits of mixed feeding are disregarded. It's EBF or nothing. I combi-fed for months, and am grateful every day that I had access to safe baby formula.

Also as a side note, I never knew until this thread that a PPH can impact on your supply. I lost 850ml after delivery, it was never mentioned in relation to breastfeeding.