Nipple shields, yay or nay ?

[WorzselMummage]

Ds (27 weeker, now almost 9 weeks ) is on the verge of being alowed to come home. He's has EBM untill now and we've been trying to get Bf going for a month, some times sucessfully but most not. He doesnt have a very good latch and only seems to be able to get a good mouthfull when i poke my nipple in mid yawn or something. He's only just over 4lb now so the big boob/small mouth combination is causing us problems i think. Anyway, yesterday i tried a nipple shield for the first time.. fantastic, full feed contended baby and elated me, YAY. But then i come and read some posts on here and kellyMom which dont exactly sing their praises and now i am worried.

I think I could have George home tomorrow or monday if i carry on using the shields but don't want to scupper my chances in the long term and i think without the shields we're a long way off being about to exclusing bf which means a long way off discharge.

what do i do ? ... help

Can't believe he is nearly ready to come home! Yay for you!

FWIW DD was prem (33 weeks), took her NINE WEEKS before she got the hang of it (took her home on bottles of EBM). The thing that solved BF for us was the shields (think by the end of the 9 weeks she was nipple confused rather then anything else though). Only needed to use it for a couple of days.

I have friends who used them for several months though.

At the end of the day it is your decision and am sure tiktok or someone else sensible wll be along soon. But I would be banging on the doors to get out...might help feeding better to be relaxed in your own home rather then in the NNU.

I know its amazing isnt it, its gone well quick too.

I have just put the car seat in the car in anticipation

I think your right about being in our own home. SCBU isnt exactly relaxing eh and sitting beind a screen with your boobs out in a room ful of people you don't know is pretty crap at he best of times. I think i might try and pump a couple fo times a day to keep my supply us as have read that can b a problem with the shields. Did you find that ?

Ermmm... I never thought I would say this but I can't actually remember! DD is 2.8 now. At the time I could not imagine ever forgetting any of the crap we were going through with her feeding and the hospital and stuff but what do you know some of it does fade.

As far as I can recall I went straight over with no extra pumping. It was amazing actually - she went from fully bottle fed to fully breast fed within a day.

I used the medela (I think) shields - they are much smaller and softer and have a cut-out bit at the top so they are smelling you not plastic.

I used nipple sheilds with both of mine. The mw and hv were not impressed but it worked for me.

DD bf for 8 months and would only do so using nipple shields that whole time. My supply seemed fine.

DS bf using shields till he was about 4 months and then suddenly one day he could latch on . I stopped bf him at 14 months. TBH it is much easier without them but they were useful to me at the time.

BTW neither of mine were prem - in fact DD was 8 lbs at 42 weeks and DS was over 11 lbs at 41 weeks. However, I do have enormous norks (at the time of birth both times I was an L cup) so think they couldn't get their mouths around my nipples!

I sware by nipple sheilds, I would have given up otherwise. Avent silicone one are good. DD wasn't confused at all and went on to BF for 14 months. good luck

I reluctantly used nipple shields for around 6 weeks, but I think dd found it difficult to get let downs through them as she'd feed for about an hour and a half with them on, and never seemed satisfied. In the end I had a system where i'd have dd feeding through a shield on one boob while I expressed with my electric pump on the other. That sped things up, but there was still the faf of sterilising, and time consuming as i'd have to feed her what I'd just expressed, then go and sterilise again!

However, if it wasn't for the shields I would have given up, I had terrible pain feeding from sore nipples, then mastitis, then thrush. I also think I have one flat nipple which didn't help matters.

For what it's worth, when I took them off dd latched straight onto my boob perfectly with no nipple confusion. I wonder if this is to do with the "imprint" from the first time she latched on as soon as she was born which I was told was a good latch?

Congratulations too btw!

I used them for 3 months with DS1, because of poor latch. My supply was poor, and they didn't help. What help have you had, in person, with the latch? A BFC might have some tips and tricks that might mean you can avoid the shields? (They are a faff, the sterilising, etc etc.)

I think the underlying problem was, I had flattish nipples. Possibly expressing beforehand or similar to make them more pointy would have worked?

I kept trying him without the shields, would take them away mid-feed, etc etc, and it just didn't work (and of course you can only try so much, without exhausting and annoying both of you!) And then suddenly one night it was ok, and we never needed them again.

Nipple shields can be a really good way of getting babies to feed who weren't accepting the breast, particularly for prem babies. But they should always be used with the support of a qualified LC or BFC because they can cause problems with supply.

If they re working for you and babe I'd use them. I m a midwife and pre babies did the whole no to shields thing BUT have used them each time for short periods and have never had a supply problem.Your little one will get get his chops round your nips when he's bigger and in the meantime he's stimulating your supply and you guys are having your lovely mummybaby time!

I ended up using breastshields with DS who was only three weeks early but would just not latch on. I stayed in hospital for 4 days just to try and get the feeding sorted out and was desperate to escape, and in the end they were the only thing that worked. I could have kissed the MW who suggested it! To start with I used them most of the time, but had been warned they could affect my supply so kept trying to get him to latch and eventually (I think about 4 weeks) he got the hang of it. They were a bit of a faff but I never had any supply problems. Upside was that he was very happy swapping between bottles of EBM and breastfeeding.

Good luck with your new baby!

I used a nipple shield for one partially inverted nipple. It think it was boots own silicon so it didnt smell of anything. My MW showed me how to use it until DS2 got the hang of the latch and then we stopped. I agree with indiehendrix that they are a faff and i found it difficult to juggle nipple shield, get the right position and get DS2 to open his mouth all at the same time

I have heard that they can cause probs so should only be used with good support

good luck and hope your DS is home and feeding soon

I thought they were the best thing ever and couldn't understand why the hospital hadn't given them out free with every baby! Really helped for me, no probs, still feeding her now 6 months on. Definitely don't worry as far as I'm concerned. I was fretting about things that in hindsight I can't believe I worried so much about, dummies, bottles, expressing etc. I only needed them for a couple of weeks, but they were such a revelation. Would def use them again!

I used them for a few weeks with both DD and DS due to poor latch and painful nipples.

I knew at the time that they weren't recommended by many midwives/HVs but they helped me establish and continue BF. Without them I would have undoubtedly given up but as it was I persevered, gradually reducing the use of the nipple shields and continued to BF (with DS for it was for nearly a year).

I used them for the first few weeks but was able to wean her off it with concerted effort. It made the early days much easier- she was tiny and my boobs were huge. She just couldn't latch on properly, but did well with the shield. After awhile I got frustrated with it- more things to carry, sterilise etc. It made public breastfeeding near impossible. So I just stuck with trying to get her off it and it worked. So I would say go for it- I found the shield a life saver. I remember feeling down thinking I would always have to use it- but it wasn't the case!

Good luck!

My midwife recommended them to me as I was having a horrible time in the very early days trying to get DD latched on to my teeny weeny nipples. They worked like a charm, suddenly she could latch with no problems and feed! I used them for a few days to get BF established and then was able to get her to latch on to the nipple. I did use them intermittently afterwards when my nipples were very painful as it seemed to help protect them.
I honestly don't think we'd have got BF sorted out quickly enough without them, they were a godsend.

massive apologies for not coming back to this sooner, i've pretty much been living at the hospital for a the last few days.

Thanks all for replying. It's nice to know shields can work in the long term.

I had to use them for about 10 days to help DS get the hang of latching. My supply didn't really sort itself out properly until I stopped using them though, so I would speak to a BFC and certainly think about pumping alongside using them to avoid issues. The key thing is the BFC though as obviously your situation is very different from mine.

I used them for 5 or so months. Didn't affect my supply at all - I had too much milk I think. It did make feeding in public a pain, but I still did it.
I had tight boobs, flat nipples and a small baby who wouldn't latch on for 3 days until I tried a shield. They made me the difference between bf or not for me, and modern ones made of silicon tend not to affect supply. They have had a bad press in the past, but crtainly for me they were exactly what we needed.
Best of luck Worzel - you sound like you have been doing a fantastic job - hope your DS gets home soon.

W, sorry overlooked this post. I think the thinking on this is that using shields is often a help in allowing small babies to latch and that good neonatal units often use them in this way. There are a number of ladies on the BLISS board who I know have gone this route.

The "don't use shields" mantra that most mws use is based on using shields in cases of sore/cracked nipples without doing anything to correct whatever underlying issue was causing the pain or damage, plus the potential to affect supply.