biological nuturing - has anyone tried it?

[Reallytired]

My little girl is a week old and we are breastfeeding. The midwives tell me that my latch is excellent and that my daughter is feeding well. However I am finding that that the first 30 seconds of each feed is agony. After that, breastfeeding is pain free.

The midwives tell me that this is normal, but I did not experience this with my son. I had a tingling sensation when I had the let down, but frankly the pain is as bad as the contractions I had during labour. I am not sure how on earth I am going to exclusively breastfeed for six months.

I went to a La Leche League meeting, but my daughter refused to feed. It was far to exciting seeing all these other babies and toddlers. However the group leader suggested I tried biological nurturing to see if I get a better latch.

Has anyone tried biological nuturing and have you had any sucess?

congratulations, did you get your homebrith?

can;t really say anything about your OP though. sorry !

yes, I did get my homebirth. Thankfully my daughter turned out of her transverse position at 35 weeks.

It was very quick and my daughter was lucky not be born down the toilet. I was also lucky in that I managed to get away with just TENS for pain relief.

that is great news. glad it went well.

have you had help from anyone other than a MW? via la leche or breastfeeding peer supporter etc?

Reallytired I can't comment on biological nurtering but I remember with my ds, the first 30 seconds of every feed were like someone shoving a red hot poker into my nipple but after that it was fine. This unpleasantness faded after a couple of weeks.

Hang in there!

Another one here who can't comment on the nurturing bit, but had a similar experience. Once I'd got over the thrush in my breasts (ow) I had similar pains at the start of each feed - they faded after the first few weeks.

Hope this helps - and bumps for anyone who can help further.

I do not know what biological nurtering is but I remember the first two weeks of BF being very painful and then all was fine.

I think contrary to what I had always heard, it was not "that" natural at all in the beginning and both DD1 and myself needed to adapt to each otherand actually learn how to do it properly.

Another one here who had a painless bf experience first time, but painful the second time. I used to physically wince when dd latched on and I dreaded feeding. It calmed down after a couple of weeks and we haven't had any problems since.

Sorry...I don't know anything about biological nurturing.

Yup I've tried biological nurturing, sounds a lot fancier than it is, you just lie back and put baby on your chest lengthways and baby bobs on this way. It is a nice relaxing way to feed but now my DS is older he dislikes being on his tum so it's off the menu at the mo.

It's just another position to try feeding in- like cradle hold, 'rugby ball,' lying down, etc. I hope your sore start does abate, if it's not due to attachment probs then it probably is a strong let-down and hopefully it should pass.

My let-down was so sore and even now can be eye watering, but more in a twingey rather than painful way!

HTH

i did it - as mamacita says, it's not that difficult. pop baby on your chest when you lie down and they sort of snuffle their way towards your nipple then latch on. DS always fed brilliantly in this position. it really helped me in the early days if DS wasn't feeding great as we had quite a few problems getting him to feed well at times. helps if you're naked and baby is just in nappy for maximum skin-to-skin. i never had pain though, so not sure if it would help that, but it is a lovely thing to try anyway.

I tried it with DS2 on bf counsellor's advice as my let down was too ferocious for him and he was choking on milk and having to bob off the boob lots so both he and I got drenched. It is basically lying back and having the baby on your tummy lying upwards feeding - the lying back helped moderate the milk flow but the down side was DS2 felt so comfy there he'd drift off to sleep after a minute or so of feeding so gave up on it after a few attempts.

DS and I use the position shown at the top of this article:

www.associatedcontent.com/article/235532/research_shows_relaxed_nursing_positions.html

It is the only way I have been able to get him to take a proper feed since he was 4 months old (he is now 8 months).

I've never used the semi-reclined position though.

The trouble is a better latch won't help with your painful let down, Reallytired. I also had excrutiating pain for the first 30 seconds of every feed in the early days after my daughter was born

It was so bad that I had to put a pencil in my mouth to bite down on to stop me crying out and upsetting my baby. Desperate to find a solution I tried everyone, from NCT wallahs to midwives and health visitors, not to mention several books on the subject. They all said the same thing: the pain will eventually subside.

Three weeks later I was pain-free. She's seven weeks now and breastfeeding is a joy.

It's not the answer you want, but it will ease soon. Stick with it (and find a pencil!).

i had this with dd. I rang a lactation consultant who said its the nipple stretching beyond what its used to and its totally normal and would pass. It did!
It lasted about 3 weeks and then all was fine.

Biological nuturing may help, simply because it can slow the force of your letdown. It is allowing mothers and babies to do what they would naturally do...main benefits, mother and baby may both be more relaxed (which is always a good thing), the use of skin to skin has always been known to be helpful. It's tweaking of what women have always done and putting a name to it.

Having some discomfort early on, when baby first latches on, is not uncommon and it should subside after a week or so as your body regulates. Pain throughout the feed or pain when there wasn't any before are the real concerns.

I've tried it and it improved dd's latch but like others, I had pain like you describe early on and it passed.

BN gave us a nice, comfortable position to nurse in though so I'd recommend it anyway.

Just wanted to say hi Lulu

Ref the nipple pain, I have an eight week old and it was 3 or 4 weeks before the latch on stopped hurting but it's painless now. With my son it hurt for a month or two then stopped. So I'd say it's early days...