Please help me ladies...I'm SO frustrated!

[clouiseg]

Hello all I really hope someone can help!

Have my 3rd DD, nearly 9 weeks old. I breastfed with previous DDs with no problems at all.

DD 3 was born via section and had problems establishing feeding & after losing a HUGE amount of weight she was placed under transitional care with formula top ups. When I left hospital I had battled & succeeded in exclusive BF...or so I thought. (I will just mention that 3 days after her birth I had a Pulmonary Embolism and a lot of very traumatic family problems since so I am totally run down. DD 2 has special needs so life is chaotic at times!)

Anyway, I am struggling with BF so much I don't know where to turn. It is so important to me to try my hardest before I give in.

I've had problems feeding with my left side since the start. It never really grew or filled up. I have used massage, expressing, extra feeds on that side, Domperidone (!) but to no avail. So it has always been the right side that has produced more milk.

I am now seriously worried. I have had Mastitis on the right side (treated with ABs) but still fed regularly. I feel that I am not able to provide what DD needs. She feeds regularly, for at least 25 mins per feed. But after a while she gets frustrated, pulls of the boob, relatches, sucks like crazy, pulls off again and on it goes like this....

Also she seems to cry ALL the time and root constanly. She is hungry. Her weight has fluctuated since birth and she has started to lose agian now. I've spoken to NCT, BFN, La Leche...everyone! I've had the HV check my latch...perfect apparently!

The other day I couldn't take the guilt of her being hungry and had fed her all day trying to fill her up. In the end I gave in & gave her some formula. I swear she took it like she hadn't been fed in weeks. And for the first time in ages, she settled beautifully. We are now in a vicious cycle. I am trying EVERYTHING to exclusively BF, but I am finding it so draining. The only time she is settled is when I give her a formula top up...then she seems so content and full up.

I will also mention that when I express, I only get around 2oz from BOTH boobs in total. The only time I get more is first thing in the morning if she is still sleeping. Feeding itself is agonisingly painful, as is expressing. But its not latch thats the problem.

I am in dire need of some support. The counsellors all say it is IMPOSSIBLE not to produce enough milk. So why is she SO hungry & distressed?

Please help. xxx

hi louise

congratulations on your DD

I'm sorry you are having so many problems feeding. i don't have any advice but I'm sure an expert will come along soon.

hang on in there

I really sympathise, and am in a similar position with my 4 week old dd. Like you, I breast fed my two older dds with no problems. This baby however is completely different and will not transfer milk effectively from the breast. It is so bloody stressful isn't it?

My baby prefers drinking from a bottle. She is only settled if I give her expressed milk in a bottle...

BTW - I think it's normal to express 2 ounces...

Hi, clouiseg. What was said to you when you phoned the helplines?

Can you give a bit more detail about the weight gain and weight loss?

Why did she lose so much weight at the beginning, do you think? Was there some health issue going on?

What happens at night?

Are counsellors really, really all saying it's impossible not to produce enough milk? That's an odd and very dogmatic thing to say - most women, we know, are able to produce enough if the circumstances are right, but often, the cirumstances are not right...

there you are - i told you an expert would come along soon

Thanks for replying ladies!

electra you're right, it is stressful. I feel useless at the moment! I mentioned the 2oz thing to my best mate, and she said that at 9 weeks she was getting 5oz off EACH breast when she expressed (!!!) And her kiddies were really healthy! Bizarre isn't it!

tiktok I'll answer your q's in order so I don't miss anything out...! Hormones have diminished my brain capacity!

When I rang the helplines, one said Thrush (the pain & DD pulling off the breast - we were treated with Fluconazole/Daktarin/Nystatin as a precaution).

Re the weight gain/loss, she was 8.15 at birth, but on day 3 she was only 7.14 so they encouraged me to express for EBM top ups. But despite me, 2 midwives & a BF supporter trying with the hospital electric pump etc etc we got nowhere. 3mls was my average. So the Paeds decided on formula top ups. Since then she is weighed fortnightly and seems to follow a trend. Some weeks she gains a little, others she is static, and yesterday she had lost 5oz in a week. She begins to gain & then loses again! They reckoned that the problem establishing feeding in hospital was because she was VERY mucusy following the Csection. She is now on Gaviscon for reflux.

At night I feed her @ midnight. Then DH generally does the night feed @ 5ish (the EBM from throughout the day).

RE the counsellors, I asked each one if my supply could be to blame but they ALL insisted that this was highly unlikely to be the case. And one in particular said its impossible as your body makes EXACTLY what your baby needs (??) It is so confusing!

lol @ KristinaM. Thankyou! x

clouiseg, just offering my support, too!
Congraultation on the arrival of your DD3 - it sounds like neither one of you had it particularly easy to start off with or now. Hope things will improve with time.

Tiktok is much better qualified to give further advice, so I will leave it to her . However, as somebody who never found it at all easy to BF any of my DSs 1-3, I think anybody who perseveres like you do, should have a medal, a knighthood and a public acknowledgement of what effort goes into being the best mother we can be to our kids!

Poor milk transfer was the problem with my DS3, now 13 months and just recently stopped BFing him.
Amount of expressed milk is NO indication of amount of milk being produced when baby is sucking/drinking effectively.
I presume you have had her checked for tongue tie or any other mouth/gum problem that would interfere with effective sucking?
Surely pain ought to no longer be a problem now? How old is she again?
BTW, DS3 also had marked preference to left breast over the right and although I continued feeding from both, milk production in right breast went right down fairly quickly. I just could not get him latched on that side, no matter in what position/hold .
Sorry, this is turning into stream on consciousness rambling - not v helpful! I know I could only relax and enjoy Bfing DS3 after he was more than 6/12 old, started on solids and I felt I was no longer solely responsible to stop him from starving. And his wt gain improved as well on solids , v v frustrating!

Wishing you best of luck. I hope here or in RL somebody is going to find something of real help to you.

clouiseg - normally, the body does indeed make what your baby needs. But you had quite a difficult start.

On day 3, it was (IMO) too soon to top up with EBM - a better solution would be to keep you and baby close and bf lots and lots and lots. Most women would not produce more than 3 mls on day 3-4 by expressing - what on earth were they thinking??? If expressing was needed, hand expressing would have been better - no one should use a breastpump before the milk is in. You were started on a road of messing about and this led to formula top ups.

To increase your supply, you need to feed without long gaps - and that means, sorry, at night. The night feed should be from you. Long gaps reduce the milk supply - it's freq. feeding that boosts it.

I would wonder about these weight losses - yes, genuine weight loss needs to be treated seriously, but you need to rule out weighing error, scales error, and maths errors in the conversion from metric to imperial.

Hope this helps.

Is this of any help?

Hi, Have you considered wind. My little boy is 16wks but I have had similar problems will pulling off and latching back on again and screaming in between. I usually try to wind him each time he does this by bouncing and try to get him to stop crying while I do this by making a noise like aaaaahhhhh or humming to distract him. Usually when I do this he stops crying, burps and goes back on easier. Also sometimes it is good to get someone else to wind if poss so that baby doesn't smell you. I also found like you that on the rare occasions he was given ebm from a bottle he took it no problem. thankfully it is getting better. I used infacol, however am unsure if it did anything much or gave me comfort in that I was trying something. I know this doesn't help with the supply prob but maybe if she can get sucking for long enough your supply will improve. Good luck, I admire your persistence as I found it hard without other children to look after.

Or try lots of skin to skin contact? Maybe with the help of a (ring)sling seeing that you have other children to look after I presume?

Awwww PacificDogwood thank you. What a lovely thing to say! Us women do need cheering up, we do, after all, have it very tough at times! I just took a look @ the link, wow! The vids are really helpful...I'll be trying the compression more I think. I have mentioned tongue tie once, but my GP was only semi interested as I was there discussing my own health! I ought to have mentioned that I have implants too so whether that is relevant, I don't know? I have also been told to keep my eyes open for Ductal thrush (apparently one dose of Fluconazole is often not enough & that could cause the pain?)

Tiktok I had an inkling that my milk would be an issue that early on, however they had me double pumping like a mad woman in hospital & I convinced myself that I was only stuggling due to my own health problems. All they kept saying was 'relax!' yeah right...they ought to try that post C section with a life threatening condition!! lol. The paeds decided to opt for formula top ups when DDs bloods revealed sky high sodium levels. I wasn't offered an alternative & I'm sure the early switch from BM to FM back to BM hasn't helped! The weight is an odd one, I've always taken her to our local Childrens ward outpatients for weighing so the scales are the same but they don't seem overly concerned as its not massive amounts of loss aside from after her birth?? The mind boggles! I'll follow your (brilliant!) advice, ty! x

Rsmum good suggestion! Shes already on infacol & gaviscon as she has colic & reflux (poor mite!)

I often have skin to skin, we bathe together and then just lie on the bed for a cuddle around feed time. My prob is that time is a luxury as DD2 requires so much extra care with her issues.

I wondered about expressing. Is there a pattern I should follow? I worry that if I express too much I may not have enough in the boob for her!! lol

Dear me, its never easy is it??

Again, here is brilliant advice from somebody who was not particularly good/effectice at expressing (most I ever got was 5 oz):
Try expressing the same time of day every day, ideally after you have fed your DD in the morning. Is there somebody else who could look after both your DCs while you do that? That was my biggest problem - I'd want to pump and invariably a little voice would shout: "Mummy, I need my bottom wiping", LOL.
Also feeding baby whilst pumping on other breast is said to be good, however I always felt I did not have enough hands for that.
I hope you have good electric pump, everything else did not work for me.

Thrush: if you are not sure, you can always have a swab taken from affected breast, basically a bit of expressed milk on cotton swab at Gps surgery should be able after 2-3 days to confirm thrush - or of course not.

Implants: I was always under the impression that breast implants are less likely to cause a BFing problem than previous breast reducton, non?

Just remembered: the other thing that really helped me when things were rough, was to concentrate just on that next feed, maybe the day ahead, and not think too much about tomorrow. By only just carrying on and doing "the next feed" 13 months passed .

Awwww you're an angel. I agree that finding time to express is one heck of a challenge but I find that expressing off one/feeding off the other is bearable.

Just a couple of hours ago, DD woke up so I immediately fed her. She did the usual...fed, got fussy on the breast after a while...was latching on trying to suck then coming off grizzling. And yet she was rooting like crazy...then came the crying. She cried for an hour solid, only stopping to try to latch again...but no joy.

I am struggling with seeing her hungry, she seems ravenous...its heartbreaking.

How do you think I ought to remedy the hunger whilst waiting for my milk supply to increase? Thats the reason I gave in & fed her FM. Gosh the whole thing is so emotional...and not nearly as easy as I took for granted it would be (being my 3rd I thought it'd be a breeze!)

Thank god for you MNers out there! X

Sorry you're having such a tough time, I empathise completely. the only things that enabled me to continue breastfeeding were

• Domperidone - up to 160mg/day
• Pumping after every feed then using this as a top up - still had to use formula every 2-3 days
• Coming to terms with the fact it was more important she ate than that it all came from me. That was really, really, really hard.

Looking back on it, I think there were 2 main problems, compounded by some mistakes in the first few days - she had a weak suck, and I had low supply both innately and because she wasn't sucking strongly. The pump never quite made up for this. It was only when she started solids at 6m that she no longer needed a top up at most feeds.

I found most breastfeeding websites and mumsnet really quite unhelpful due to the assumption that everyone can do it, if you don't have enough milk it's just that you're not feeding enough etc. I did absolutely everything according to all the advice, skin to skin, round the clock feeding etc etc, she was still HUNGRY and wasn't gaining weight. Worth trying all those different tricks to see if you can get it to work, but sometimes it just doesn't. Hang in there.

thalia, yep, same here too, although never took quite as much Domperidone as you .
clouiseG, if you are doing the best you can, you are doing v well. The way I looked at it was that every bit of breast milk I managed to give my kids was valuable, and if they needed occ formula it would not kill them.
Beware the regular top-up though: DS1 became wise v quickly and would spend lots of time on the boob (without actually drinking much) and then guzzle 8oz of formula, I think because it came out of the bottle so much easier . Topping up was the beginning of the end of BFing with him.

thalia ty for reassuring me that I'm not alone re the supply issue. I am on Motilium 30mg a day to see whether it will work this time...fingers crossed!

PacificDogwood I totally agree re the topping up. My worst fear is that DD will end up 100% on the formula (shudder!).

Incidentally I spoke to an advisor from the NCT who is visiting me soon as a last ditch attempt...she seems to think that I may have suffered some ductal damage after my implants were done as they are behing the tissue, not the muscle!!??? Apparently that could also cause the pain when feeding. She thinks I have tried everything reasonable & said at very worst I can mixed feed which is better than no BM at all.

I'm a wee bit sceptical...anyone else heard of this with implants??