Ruminations on my Bfeeding history

[Verity79]

I'm due to start a peer supporter course on Friday and I've been thinking on my breastfeeding history. It's not been easy and I'm worried I'm not the right person for the 'job' as I've had a rough ride.

I take sertraline (anti-d) and Lamictal (anti-epileptic) and am 4 months pg and tandem feeding my 3 year old and my 18 month old.

I had a 4 day induction with my 1st which ended with ventouse delivery. My dd was jaundiced the first day and wouldn't feed from about 18 hours old. I begged the nurse for formula as I thought she would starve.

Went home and tried to bfeed. By the time MWs accepted she had serious problems she was too ill to even suck from a bottle - we had to 'milk' the teat into her mouth after physically prying her jaws open.

We were then back in hospital for double bili bed treatment with me pumping every 2 hours and force feeding 2 oz of formula which she would throw up. Milk came in at day 5 but by then DD was not very keen on bfeeding. Took til week 8 to get her off bottles and back on to me.

Reflux was by then a major problem. 1 1/2 hour feeds with breaks to vomit and 20 mins or so to change nappy/get more muslins before feeding started again. Was told posseting is normal.....no one believed it was a problem until she finally hit 10lbs at 16 weeks only to drop under again. Got domperidone so I could carry on feeding her. We also had thrush and low supply to deal with.

I found out about child led weaning/full term nursing/whsatever and was keen to feed as long as we could.

I then got PND-OCD which was triggered by a 'well meaning' friend who told me that if I diddn't stop bfing at 6 months her immune system would never work (then sent spurious/irrelevant research papers to 'back' this up).

My DH had to force me to feed DD as I would be sick/gagging everytime I fed her as I was convinced I was poisioning her. I started to have visions of harm happening to my baby and developed obsessions with car seats/pushchair straps/reins to keep her safe to mitigate any harm I was doing by bfeeding.

I got better with support and meds but never truly got over it.

After my 2nd was born I had a cons. psychiatrist tell me I was harming my 7 week old baby by bfing and taking meds then nearly sponateously combusted to hear my 1st was still feeding at 22 months....because I was forcing her to do it and I was obviously getting my jollies from it.

I nearly killed myself in the clinic I was so distraut. I was then in and out of A&E seeing the psychiatric crisis team due to sucidal thoughts, before getting real clinical help which is still on going.

I don't want to be one of those women discussed in another thread who have no compassion for others or their situations or at least be perceived as one. I.e. I got through x, y, z so by default if you didn't /can't i'm better than you. Not that I actually think that because I don't.

I got lucky with my DH knowing how best to support me, money spare for pump hire AND formula, support from my mum and mil, a HV who actually cared about me and baby. If one of those things had been missing I almost certainly would have had to ffed because it would have been too much. (That didn't sound judgemental did it?)

Any tips for me? Or advice. Or ruminations from your experiences?

Who is offering the peer support training?

Most good courses offer an element of de-briefing and coming to terms with your own experiences. Key skills are learning to support mothers non-judgementally and using objective information, not solely basing suggestions on your own personal experiences. Training delivered by someone who is trained to bf counsellor/LLL leader/Bfn Supporter level for one of the national bf orgnaisations would most likely cover some of this ground.

Often mums who go on to do training have been through personal challenges, and that can be one of the initial motivating factors to train. This is no bad thing , as it means you will genuinely have empathy with those struggling. The skill comes in setting your own experiences, desires, beliefs etc aside to focus on the mum and where she is at.

Full bf counsellor or equivalent level training is more in depth and explores these issues in more detail, but peer supporters too have a really crucial role. good luck with your training .

I actually think you will probably be good at it. It's hardest to be a peer supporter when you've had it easy with no problems, and don't understand why people can't do it. You've been through a lot and still managed. there will be the odd time when you think 'oh for goodness sake, just get on with it!' but I would have thought in the main your experiences will be of help to many Mums.

The course is really therapeutic too, if it's anything like the one I did. It's a great thing to do, go for it!

I am finding being a peer supporter immensely challenging and my BFing experience amounts to 'baby sucks milk from breasts', beginning and end of story . You sound infinitely more qualified. Equally, I assume course encouraged you to share your own experiences and work through/ past them?

Thank you for all your kind words they've been very reassuring.

I'm just concerned as to me bfing is intrinsic to mothering my small baby/toddler (not so vital for older children when DD1 is only having a 10 sec 'feed' every few days ).

Obviously I don't think that ffing means you don't mother your baby but I HATED everytime my DD1 had a bottle even if it was my milk. This was because it reminded me of MY failings as a mother - the going along with a nonmedically indicated induction at 38 weeks at the insistence of my cons., not being able to do anything to prevent the jaundice, the force feeding, interminable pumping, ad infinitum

The course is due to start tomorrow and it's an accredited La Leche League peer supporter course run by a HV who works at our local breastfeeding cafe (I love the name breastfeeding cafe, it sounds like the waitresses offer 'Left or right breast madam? It's quite garlicy and spicy today as I had a curry last night'......

I think I'm just having a wobble as I'm all hormonal and as usual my milk has dried up in the 2nd trimester so my youngest is having beakers of gold top now instead of getting her milk from me.

I have done that course and one thing that has become clear to me is how irrelevent our individual BFing experience are (or should be) to the supporting process.