Question for Tiktok or other BF counsellors re feeding after breast surgery

[ManhattanMama]

I had breast reduction surgery 3 years ago after suffering chronic back pain for many years. When DS was born 9 months ago I was surprised when colostrum came through as I'd prepared myself for not being able to feed.

He had real trouble latching on as I have keloid scarring partway around each nipple, so we ended up doing a mixture of BF, EBM and FF. The most I could ever express was about 3oz at a time from both breasts.

For other reasons (illess/medications/rejecting the breast) we ended up 100% FF after 5 or 6 weeks.

What I would like to know is if there's anything I can do with regards helping any future DCs to latch onto the nipple properly? If I got milk through last time, I should be able to do so again? And if I can solely BF, will my supply increase to more than 3 oz at a time? Will BF counsellors have experience of helping people who have had breast reductions?

Many thanks

MM - best place to go at the moment is www.bfar.org which is a very good US site, and which has helped a lot of people here in the UK, too.

I have helped women who have had reductions, and I am sure some of my colleagues have. Their experience is variable, but many can and do fully bf....i don't know enough about different surgical techniques to judge what the effects are, but that website may.

Has the keloid scarring mitigated at all in the time since your ds was born? Is it likely to respond to treatment?

Many thanks Tiktok. I meant to go back and say thanks for replying to me on that other contentious thread but by the time I looked at it again there were another 8 pages which started to get me overwhelmed!

The keloid scarring has definitely reduced, it's still raised but not sore to the touch or as hard. I didn't know there was treatment for it? Will put my investigative hat on.

I'll have a look at that site - looks helpful at first glances.

Thanks again

Hey MM I had surgery too and spoke to a consultant while I was pg. She said it might be possible to bf exclusively. However from my later experience (and you probably had the same thing) to do this is a long and hard struggle and you really have to want it, I think to cope with the constant feeding, the baby fussing over no milk coming out, flat/sore nipples etc. Tis possible tho and some of the women on bfar.org have managed it. To some extent it depends on the severity of your op so I would suggest getting the notes from it to see how much breast tissue was damaged - maybe even consulting the surgeon if poss.

Other options are investing in a Lact-aid (not available to buy in the UK I think, but your local LLL might have one) - this allows you to FF and stimulate the nipple at the same time - and maybe a Nipplette for the nips and drugs to increase supply such as domperidome. The consultant adviced me to express pre-natally and freeze the colostrum for after birth - you might want to try that next time. This is all stuff I plan to do for my next child if I'm lucky (and feel up to it!).

Basically the bfar.org is v. useful, there's a book as well - you will have to make your own path to some extent, the consultants I've met with haven't been that knowledgeable.