My breastfeeding experience - what SHOULD have happened? long sorry

[goingnowherefast]

I had a terrible early time breastfeeding. I had a very long labour (4 days) culminating in an emcs. I was exhausted.
I first tried to latch dd about 1 hour after birth - I was still partially numb from the emcs and could not hold her very well. Despite this she seemed to feed ok. She didn't want to feed much after the first feed.

Almost 24 hours later (after only 1 or 2 short feeds the first day) she wanted to feed all night. My nipples fast ripped open, became scarred, and were bleeding and I was in excruciating pain. Various midwives came and checked the latch - some said it looked fine, others said the lacerations on my nipples were indicative of poor attachment, but we honestly tried everything and I couldn't bf without it hurting. She was checked for tongue tie. I was allowed home when the pain seemed to be lessening, though I told everyone I was still in pain feeding and my nipples kept bleeding, to no avail.

Anyway, I read all these posts saying how support for women post birth should be improved (which I obviously agree with). On the surface I had great support, people came whenever I buzzed for assistance feeding, but whatever we tried I could not get a pain free feed. What could anyone have done? Was I let down or was it just that breastfeeding would have hurt and damaged my nipples however it had started? Is there something wrong with me? I just really want it to work out next time as we are ttc again.

I'm no expert but it is a myth that breastfeeding doesn't hurt if it is done correctly. Sometimes it jsut does hurt! My first had me bleeding lots, and it was jsut the way she fed! I'm sure there is nothing wrong with you. Did you try any nipple creams or different feeding positions with your baby?

It's hard to know whether you were given sufficient support without more information.

I don't know.

But seems to me that feeding on bloody nipples didn't help, but that problems with the latch happened the first 24 hours making subsequent feeding very painful.

yes - I tried lansinoh, kamillosan, rubbing breast milk in. I also tried the rugby ball hold which appeared to help initially but had just transferred the damage to another part of the nipple.
to be honest it is still pretty blurry but I rememeber so many different people trying to help me and we still couldn't get it right.

Goingnowhere.
My ds is tongue tied and he made me bleed for the first five days or so. They didn't do anything about it though, just left him. Now when he sticks his tongue out it is like a love heart at the end.
I am 21 weeks pg so i will be watching your thread to see what others say.
Good luck

The phrase 'various midwives' rings alarm bells for me - they can have v. different levels of competency and training and enthusiasm when it comes to solving bf problems. Sometimes quite small tweaks can be needed to fix some latch problems - an experienced and trained bf counsellor would be much better than 'a midwife' at doing that (some mws are bf counsellors too but that's rare).

It shouldn't hurt if it's working right, but it's normal to find it hard to get it working right, if that makes sense. It can take quite a while and some expert help for some of us. That may be one way in which your support could have been better while looking good on the surface - maybe it was a quantity vs quality issue?

goingnowhere - sad story. Support for bf is more than just being encouraging...the practical skills have to be there, too. Nipples being ripped open have to be a result of the way your baby was attached. This could be because of tongue tie, or a less common oral anomaly, or much more likely, a result of the baby not taking in sufficient breast tissue, unrelated to the shape of her mouth and tongue.

Babies and mothers should be kept close together, and if the bf hurts like the way you describe, this should be addressed immediately by someone who knows what to look for and can make amendments to the way the baby takes the breast. Skilled people rarely have women in their care whose nipples become damaged the way yours did.

The long labour you had will not have helped - your baby may have been less than alert, for instance. If it was possible, she should have been put in your arms for skin to skin contact immediately after birth - there is no need to wait an hour after a section unless there is some medical or surgical emergency. Typically, babies born by section are not given to the mum straight away, but weighed and wiped and then wrapped up like a sausage, and then given to mum after she has been stitched. Not necessary - much better to get the two of you together, while the baby is in a postbirth state of readiness to respond to instinct...which includes licking, sucking, exploring, finding the breast ad opening wide

I totally agree with starfish about 'various' midwives. The messing about and intrusion this can mean for both mother and baby can lead to the baby 'switching off' and it becoming harder, not easier, to feed.

Thank you. These replies have helped, it's sonmething I have partially blocked out as it was a very dark time for me. Sounds dramatic I know because we were both healthy (apart from an early weight gain issue that was sorted) but I was so desperate for bf to work for us, and traumatised after the labour. I ended up expressing for a long time which I found vry draining.

Tiktok - she was given to me after being checked over and placed on my chest with a towel over us both whilst I was being stitched. She was very high up though - I couldn't move at all so maybe I should have tried to feed her then but I'm not sure how it would have worked wih the positioning.

If it was her not taking in enough breast tissue which I think is very likely, is that because I wasn't bringing her in close enough to the breast? I really want to get it right next time.

I didn't see a trained breastfeeding counsellor until 2 weeks afterwards by which time the damage was already so bad I had to stop, just touching the breast hurt - I honestly did not know when the latch was good or not. I tried biological nurturing then but it was too late.

I think what you could learn is that if it's hurting, to keep asking for help until it doesn't hurt. Simplistic, but better to ask for help immediately before it starts hurting.

Jack Newman's book: Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers I found quite helpful.

goingnowhere - merely plonking the baby down on your chest was not good enough!! You were effectively immobile, as you say, so ensuring your baby was able to root and lick and bob about comfortably and not too high up for this to lead to spontaneous mouth-breast attachment....that's the midwife's job, as it would have been yours if you could have moved

Not taking in enough breast happens when the baby's mouth is not wide open enough, and when the latch is too central...it needs to be assymetric, so the tongue does not impede the breast being drawn right back into the mouth.

Babies do this (the open wide thing) in 'enabling' circumstances - which do not include being plonked underneath her chin, do not include head holding, or head pushing, or neck pinching....all examples of 'help' which hinder.

Of course some mothers and babies do overcome a bad start, whereas other bf relationships are fragile from the start for all sorts of reasons and the trick is to make them less fragile, not more

plonked underneath her chin = underneath the mother's chin, that is

Although plonked under baby's chin could be interesting

Sorry you had this upsetting experience. I also struggled to feed my dc1, but did bf my next children - with the support that I had learned to access as a result of my problems with dc1.

Towards the end of your next pg, find out from your HV where all the local bfing clinics/workshops/support groups/Baby Cafes are. You could also contact the NCT and BfN, who run support groups as well as having breastfeeding counsellors and supporters who can help you.

Go to some of the groups before you have your baby - you will be made most welcome - and get to know the helpers there, so that when you have your baby you will feel comfortable talking to them, and know that they are there for you.

You may find a helper with whom you 'click' and who may be willing to come to visit you in hospital and help you from the very earliest days. At the very least you can go to a group as soon as you like once you come out of hospital.

At a group that I go to, one week a very pg lady was there with her toddler, and the next week she came with her toddler, her mum, and her one-day-old baby!

It can be much better for you next time. Not all babies have the same feeding style - it was very different with my dcs - and you will be wiser and more preared this time.

I mean each of my dcs was different.

goingnowherefast this is the problem I had too, emcs and I was in an extremely busy hospital where I barely saw the same midwife twice. I kept saying that my DS would latch on but would fall off after a few minutes so everytime a midwife came I asked them to wait and watch as he would fall off again but they would say they were busy but would come back and then never would I ended up back in a midwife led unit at another hospital and they were much better but it still seemed like he didn't get it really, i'm still not really sure why.

I hope it works out for you next time.

GNWF I am sorry for your past experience I had a similarly traumatic birth and early days with my ds1 and ended up not BF. I just wanted to share with you my second experience of BF ds2 (now 4m) - a different birth and being forewarned with a LOT of information beforehand, and having good support already lined up in advance (including MN), meant that he has been exclusively BF since birth and we have had only the most minor wobbles. My nipples were never worse than slightly tender.

Some things you could do now would be to read good books on BF and if you can, attend meetings run by LLL or some other reputable BF organisation (not just NHS). As many as possible. Meet the BF counsellors, get phone numbers at the ready, and maybe come up with a plan. Find out about any Baby Cafes or similar places in your area. I did all of this and although it was overkill - everything went very smoothly really - when you have such a horrible first experience I think it can help to put some of those demons to bed, and prepare you for what will hopefully be a much much easier second time.

I would echo everything that TikTok says and especially how unhelpful it is to have anybody manhandling your baby. I had a rule that NO ONE was touching my baby to do anything to do with BF (this was the main reason things didn't work out for me with ds1). Any good practitioner knows that you don't touch mother or baby when helping them BF. If anyone tries it you know they are going to be a hinderance rather than a help IMO. You might want to plan a response in advance - I think mine was something like "No, stop now please. I do not want this kind of help."

Best of luck ttc

Thank you. I did see an nct breastfeeding counsellr who was helpful, but I think it was too late. Also she wouldn't come out to see me (which I totally understand, bu the way, they are all volunteers I know) and she lived a long way away and so I could only get to ehr once. Regular help from her would probably have been great.

I did go to a bfing group for a few months after having dd as I was still expressing and partially breastfeeding when she would latch on (our problems went from severe pain to refusal to latch after being bottle fed for so long).

Thanks for the info everyone. Tiktok - thank you, everyone told me to push the baby's head on really fast, also my postnatal midwife told me to hold her head on as she kept pulling away which obviously distressed her, but at the time I didn't know better.

I think I will be having an elective c section next time so will make sure someone can put her where baby will be able to attach his/herself.

Thank you TPL - it's really encouraging to know you have had a better second experience.

I found when bfing that in the first few weeks, nipples got sore and cracked, and it would always hurt (toe curling pain, bloody sore) for the first 30 seconds or so of a feed but if it still hurt after that then the latch was wrong, mouth not open enough, and I would take them off and start again. If it carried on hurting then I would say the latch was wrong for your baby. I would mess around getting the latch right by sort of juggling babys head/boob in vaguely the right positions, one hand on each, then probably baby would cry with hunger then I would sort of ram the boob in as far as I could, when the mouth was open wide. That sounds deranged and really wrong doesnt it but it seemed to work! I found a book called 'bestfeeding' really helpful, not sure who its by.
My first baby did BF all night for the first few nights, and the latch was ok with a bit of messing, I think she was just hungry and traumatised. I honestly don't know how I could have done all that juggling of babys head and boobs 2nd time though because I had a CS. But because ds was in SCBU I was expressing until he came out by which time I was physically much better and could jostle and fight with him lovingly guide him onto my breast. I really don't know how you could manage to BF in the first few days after a CS, especially if its your first time BFing. So maybe just see the bad stuff that happened when you couldnt BF as part of the inevitable effects of the EMCS, which was life saving for you and your baby I guess? I just mean, don't beat yourself up about it, healthy mammy and baby, what a miracle. But good luck next time, hope this helps.

Gosh goingnowhere fast i really feel for you, i am sorry i am not able to offer much support but at least for the second time round you know what to expect and can prepare for it by seeing a bf counsellor who is specialised to help. i know how hard it can be as i found out myself, its not as easy as just popping baby on and away you go. seems as though a special skills are needed.

ooh, poor you. Sounds v familiar. Bf with ds was a disaster - it was so incredibly painful that I gave up after a week when he was readmitted to hospital with dehydration ( after I begged the midwife to come and look at him because I could tell something was wrong.) It was awful, and I felt incredibly guilty about it for ages. But my nipples were cracked and bleeding and just getting dressed was like having them sandpapered! Looking back I think there was something wrong with the latch but none of the midwives I saw were very helpful.

I managed to BF dd for nearly a year though - I was a bit more prepared for the pain, which lasted each and every bf for 6 weeks before my nipples somehow magically turned to leather. I never had milk leaking onto my breast pads - just blood. Extremely yuck and extremely painful. Having said that I had moved to a different borough by then and the midwives were more switched on plus I insisted on more specific help after my experience with the first one. The biggest help for me was with positioning the baby properly - then the latch just seemed to follow more easily.

I do think it is just more painful for some people. One of my friends has just had a baby and I had loaded her up with literature about it all after my experiences, but she has taken to it with no problems at all.

Good luck second time round!

Your experience sounds truly awful - I'm so sorry for you.

About day 2 after an emergency CS, DS obviously had a poor latch for one feed (although to be honest all the feeds were hurting) and he sucked a flap of skin from one nipple about an inch long - it was agony (even the midwives were wincing!). I had to express for 48 hours to let them heal.

I went on to feed him and my other three for 9-12 months each. What made the difference for me was that I was in Australia and the hospital had a lactation consultant on call, who came to see me and spent an hour each of the 7 days I was in hospital helping me feed and interpret DS's behaviour. She just sat with me and chatted through the whole feed and was warm and encouraging and knowledgable.

I've had my other children in this country and had lots of conflicting advice from midwives and HVs who pop in briefly and then head out again. Without the extended time and support from the first breastfeeding consultant, I'm sure I wouldn't have done so well.

Good luck finding some better support and advice for next time.