Can I give breastfeeding another go?

[finallypregnant]

DS will be 5 weeks on Friday. Breastfeed for the first 6 days although was very ill with an infection. Had to give up on day 7 as was taken back into hospital and pumped full of loads of drugs for 5 days. Was then discharged but with several oral prescriptions to take.

DS took to bottle and formula very well and went from 6.5 lb to 8.5lb in 4 weeks.

Was in the bath this morning and noticed that I have milk allbeit just a little leaking from both breasts.

Can I give b/f another go? Only just off all the meds so that shouldn't be an issue any longer. Can I express and give him my milk depending on how much I can get? ANy help appreciated.

yes it's possible, keep this bumped so that someone comes along with more information.

If you're medically fine to do so (no drugs in your milk) then yes you can start trying. A friend did it and managed to re-start successfully. I am not sure on the specifics but somebody on here will come and help. I know my friend put her dd to the breast whenever she was hungry, spent time topless with her and established a lovely and long bf relationship.

I should say I wasn't allowed DS in hospital with me and that the drugs meant I couldn't breastfeed during the time I was using them

Yes it is possible. The first thing to do would be to put yout DS to your breast and see what happens. If he is happy to suckle then that is really good news - you would need to let him nurse as many times during the day as possible, topping him up with formula or EBM as necessary and gradually decreasing. And you would also need to express - would recommend buying or hiring a double pump for extra effectiveness and saving time - probably a minimum of 8 times a day including once at night to begin with, to build up your supply.

If your DS was not keen to nurse you would need to encourage him gently and there are lots of different ways to try.

You need expert help with this so do contact one of the helplines. Good luck

You should check re drugs and breastfeeding, lots of mothers are told to stop, and it is quite safe to do so...maybe Tiktok will be along soon, she is very knowledgeable on this subject

certainly worth a try.

Lots of skin to skin time, feed often - say every 3 hours, express in between if you have time or the feeding doesn't work (only express for 20 mins).

Once your milk starts flowing again try a baby moon (or whatever they are called - spend a couple of days in bed with the baby feeding whenever he wants.

Hope you are feeling better now.

Thank you. Going to look into it more.

Was taken back into maternity hospital so I'd be horrified if the staff there said that I couldn't bf whilst on iv and oral meds. Our hospital is very pro bf.

Call a BFC, straight away.
(numbers on profile)
It is possible, but hard work.
It's pretty much the same as establishing milk at the beginning but with a bit of contending from the bottle.
Start with a babymoon if you can, just lay with DS in bed, him in a nappy, you topless, and get plenty of skin-to-skin, see if he'll latch on, if he will, bonus, let him latch as much as possible and try expressing when he is sleeping to get your supply going again, offer the breast before every feed and fingers crossed!

If he won't latch then it'll be harder, but still not impossible, a BFC can help you with your latch. (I'd be inclined to call one anyway as you don't want to get cracked or bleeding nipples because of a poor latch when it's going to be hard enough as it is!)

Good Luck

I have no advice beyond what people have said here, but just wanted to wish you good luck!

Finallypregnant I was on IV antibiotics for 5 days and oral for 2 weeks afterwards folllwing a womb infection after I had DS. But I was still able to carry on feeding him. It doesn't matter now in one sense because it has already happened, but if you find out you could have carried on but didn't due to incorrect advice then do complain if you can, to stop the same thing happening to another woman. Of course it may be that they were absolutely .Your life was in danger if you didn't take the drugs so you did the right thing in either case.