What do you wish a bf supporter in hospital had told you/done?

[FourArms]

I'm coming towards the end of my bf peer supporter course, and soon I'll be volunteering on the postnatal wards at our local hospital.

So... if a bf supporter had been available in your hospital, what would you have liked them to have done/told you/showed you?

I was v.lucky with DS1 and DS2. Although there were slight issues with both (c/s with DS1 and a spell in NICU for DS2) they were both v.easy to bf and it came very naturally to us all from feed one. We did have problems once we were home, so I have a lot of experience with these, but not much for problems in the early days.

Any thoughts will be gratefully received!

Sorry if I am repeating anything - haven't had time to go over the whole thread. Based on my own experiences:

1. A baby can have a perfect latch and you can STILL be in worlds of pain and end up with sore/cracked nipples.

1. The above WILL pass (took 2 weeks for me - felt like forever).

1. You are not letting anyone down or failing as a woman if number 1 does happen.

1. You may not feel an instant bond and overwhelming love from the first time you BF. n fact, you may really hate the feeling for a while.

repeat 3 and 4

1. You can feed for an hour, any the baby can still wake up after another 10 mins wanting more! I lost count of the amount of times that she was crying and I said 'well, it's definitely not hunger, that's for sure!'

Good luck!

Tom just slept for first 36 hours and wouldn't latch on at all. He had 1oz of formula and after that he did latch on and feed. I did almost give up when he hadn't gained weight for 2 weeks and found out about growth spurts. He was a nightmare with bottles. Didn't want expressed milk, but would have formula (when I was working). Comfort feeds.

Erin is 11 weeks and all going good. She was awake more when newborn and latched on well from the start. She has this mad look just before she latches on. I'm waiting on a new breastpump, but am hoping that she'll take to bottles better than Tom. Tom gave up the boob just before he was 22 months.

Advice on expressing. Medela do a bigger spout things, which I didn't realise. Was quite painfull expressing with the standard one and was jolly glad to find out they did bigger ones.

Oh, and expressing is time consuming. Baby is much more efficient at getting the milk than a pump. First thing in morning is a good time. HV asked the other day if i'd tried expressing , to give me a break and spend some time with Tom.

Oh, my number 1 tip for breastfeeding:

Have a packet of formula in the cupboard. Even if you never ever intend to use it, knowing you have a backup in case it all goes wrong is a great way to feel more relaxed about the whole thing.

Good on you FourArms - you're doing a wonderful thing that will be appreciated by so many women (and babies!)

I'd echo the "tell them it may hurt at first" comment. I was another one who was told constantly that "It shouldn't hurt if you are doing it right". My baby had a great latch, but my nipples were still cracked and bleeding. For some people it does take a couple of weeks for them to toughen up. Pain and a sense you are failing somehow is not a good combination to keep you trying to breastfeed.

The best advice I received:

1. (in antenatal breastfeeding class) - It's not a problem if it takes a few days to sort out feeding - they are born with stores of food and WILL NOT STARVE. This saved me a LOT of stress and enabled me to get feeding sorted without being frantic to get something into DD's stomach.

1. Babies have very small stomachs (they showed us a marble to demonstrate). That tiny trickle of colostrum is enough to feed them. Really. Truly.

1. When your nipples are cracked and bleeding and feeding is torture - three things that helped me were Lansinoh (I see that this doesn't work for everyone, so would encourage people to try different things), trying different holds - having the baby come at your breast from a different direction is likely to be less painful than having her feed in the same way each time, and expressing for a couple of days to give my breasts time to heal.

Blimey - as a woman pregnant with her first baby, keen to bf, I'd say - point people at this thread! I've learned loads reading this - hopefully it will stick when it comes to the time (am still only 16 weeks so it's a bit of a way off for me).

Absolutely Mrsvik; I put my relaxed approach down to having ensured that I had bottles and formula in case of emergency.

The nurse at hospital were very supportive, if a bit abrupt and scary, but I wish someone had told me that you can (a) rewarm left over EBM without a significant increase in bacteria levels;(b) leave EBM at room temp for up to 4 hours; and (c) that it will last for longer than 24 hours in the fridge. Christ knows how much of the stuff I ditched because I didn't know these things.

I had no support whatsoever with breastfeeding. Like many of the women above, the midwife grabbed my boob and shoved it into the mouth of my baby the first time I fed her and I was left to my own devices from there on in. I was actually very lucky to find it relatively easy with my first dd which helped me to cope when my second dd took a little longer to get the hang of breastfeeding.

I agree that a step by step photo guide would be great.

And I think it helps to be reminded that you have to turn the whole of your baby's body towards your boob, not just their head.

Oh, and that it does hurt, but after a week or so it gets a lot easier.

And that lanisoh cream is a god send.

Oh, and that you need a nice quiet place with lots of cushions to support you. Breastfeeding in a busy room in the early days is really hard. Obviously this is difficult to achieve if you're on a busy postnatal ward as I was for a few days but when they get home mummies should be encouraged to feed in a quiet place while they try to get the hang of it.

I don't know what it is about hospitals in London but they seem to have a shortage of pillows! Visitors to new mums should be encouraged to bring pillows with them to help with getting mummy and baby comfy for their feed.

I very happily fed both my dds till they were 8 months so mums should be encouraged to persevere but also you should let them know that if they can't do it, it's absolutely not the end of the world and the best thing for their little ones is that they have a happy, relaxed mummy and if breastfeeding isn't allowing that to be the case, bottle feeding is just fine.

Good luck. You're services will be much needed and valued by lots of mums.

Alternative viewpoint on CS and GA: it made no difference whatsoever to the amount of milk I produced. 6ml of colostrum 4 hours after she was born (Immensely kind and patient assistant nurse collecting with teeny little syringes x6) while I was still groggy and bay in nicu. 3 days later, was expressing about 300ml a day (baby still in nicu and tube-fed.) Nurses very surprised that I was able to stump up 40ml at very short order.

Would second the two weeks of pain- even with number 4 (and I'd forgotten that yes it is a little sore at first and doesn't mean you're doing it wrong).

You can feed literally in any position in which baby's mouth can reach your nipple as long as baby is facing you. Does not have to be conventional bottle-feeding pose of baby on lap- indeed shouldn't be! Learn feeding lying down asap after the birth- catch up on valuable ZZZZZs while feeding. Lie baby on large folded baby blanket, edge at its shoulders, and roll sides towards baby on each side of it to wedge it and stop it from rolling over either way.

I was very unsure in the early days if my baby was latched on properly and hence feeding well. Eventually I read somewhere in the internet (and saw some videos) explaining to look for ears wiggling slightly, cheeks looking full and not dimpled and the slight pausing during each suck. This for me allowed me to unlatch when it wasn't right and keep trying until it worked. It sometimes took up to 15 minutes and what seemed like millions of attempts to unlatch and relatch, but by doing this I found I no longer had any pain when feeding which was a revelation for me. 14 weeks down the line and I'm still breastfeeding without the pain.

Not that it will help with the actual breastfeeding, but in order that I didn't feel housebound early on, or couldn't have visitors I bought a breast feeding cover that allowed me to feed in public taking my time and not worrying if I was flashing myself to all and sundry. I know I shouldn't worry about these things but it allowed me to only worry about getting the latch and feeding right and not what everyone else might be thinking or seeing!

Good luck, your services will be much appreciated, those that helped me in the hospital reassuring me and spending hours with me when I was finding it difficult were what got me through the first few difficult days and gave me the courage to not give up!

I wish there was not so much pressure to breastfeed.. I found the whole thing completely traumatic with bleeding nipples, undiagnosed thrush for weeks with various midwives & healthworkers telling me it was incorrect latch-on, also a low milk supply which caused baby to be dehydrated and brought to hospital. Due to the huge pressure to breastfeed and the problems I was having I felt completely demoralised, gulity and felt like I was not being a good mum. I also fear that at a time when bonding with baby is so important my frustrated and anxious feelings towards being able to breastfeed were taking over this bonding process.Introducing formula is NOT the end of the world - at the end of day, if baby is hungry they need to be fed. It's great if breastfeeding comes naturally, but for lots it doesn't and they should't be made to feel so guilty about it....I think people including the medical profession should have more compassion and listen to individual situations & provide more help in the early early days, 2/3 weeks down the line is even too late in my experience. Baby is now 4.5 months and I have been combination feeding from birth.

Er, don't do this! When DS was a few days old and jaundiced we saw a BF counsellor in hospital who did the most bizarre thing. She wanted to show me a technique for shaping my nipple (which was useless for me), and she turned to my DP who was sitting in the corner and said "may I touch your wife's breast?"
Just wrong on so many levels.

I wish that someone would tell new mums that when their milk comes in they will have too much and latching will often be a problem for a few days because of that and how to get over that problem by decreasing the pressure so that the baby can latch better.

I really wish also that someone would tell new mums that when on about day 8 it suddenly seems like they have no milk actually its probably just that they are not engorged any more, keep going at that point and all will be well. To breast feed you don't generally have to walk around with boobs as hard as oranges.....

Sadly I know far too many people who tell me they had plenty of milk at 1st but after about a week it seemed to just dry up, so they couldn't feed their baby....

I was very lucky at the hospital where I had both my dc. With ds, they showed me how to bf straight away and I even had an amazing junior nurse show me how to bf lying down - was exhausted after a very long induction. At this amazing hospital, they won't let you go home until bf has been established unless you are bottle feeding. I had problems when I went home though and had real difficulty bf on the right boob. I rang the NCT bf support as I didn't know who else to ask, they were very good. When the HV came round she was brilliant too and offered very practical suggestions to bf my very greedy hungry boy! I bf till he was 14 months.

With my dd it was a doddle, and am still bf her now at 20 months. Btw, at the hospital they were born at formula is not offered and if you are bf you are not allowed home until bf has been established 'successfully'.

I do wish I'd had more support though in the early days with the problems bf on the right side. Even now I much prefer bf with ds on my left boob.

Er, that should read 'Even now I much prefer bf with DD on my left boob'.

Definately make sure you can recognise a tongue-tie. Anterior or posterior and level of severity.

I saw several 'breastfeeding specialists' - none of whom recognised my sons severe posterior tongue tie until he'd lost nearly 12% of his body weight within the 1st three days and we were nearly hospitalised.

Finally - my 'knight-in-shining-armour' of a midwife came out for a home visit (a locum as usual one was signed off sick) and she recognised it immediately. She didn't freak me out when telling me what it meant and how we'd solve it.

She just calmly told me that was why I had blood blisters and why he wasn't feeding or gaining weight. She also knew exactly what the procedure was to sort it out - who to refer me to and could tell me all about how it would proceed from here.

Sorry if this has already been covered but I really feel it would be useful for you.

I've just read back some of the other posts - and wanted to add that DS1 was so tongue tied he COULDN'T take a bottle - even if I'd wanted to give him one.

I also ended up syringe feeding just so he wouldn't continue to lose weight - but the frenulotomy solved all of that (done at 15 days) - it wasn't quite the pleasant 'sleeping baby, no bleeding' situation they told me it might be, and he WAS in pain for 24/48 hours after (and let us know!), but after a few weeks of help at the local bf clinic at the hospital - he latched well and bf until 9 months.

I had problems and got some help in the hospital. I had gestational diabetes and after failure to progress during labour ended up having an emergency cs. The mw gave me a short time to try to latch DS on after the birth (quite hard to feed a baby when you've just had a cs, are numb from waist down, still in theatre and haven't got a clue what to do!) then started giving him formula from a cup - saying he had to eat as his blood sugars were so low.
After a number of false starts I found one nurse who was quite helpful and finally left hospital feeling that I knew what I was doing. I didn't. DS lost a lot of weight and took 5 weeks to regain birth weight.
The one bit of advice that I didn't get was what to do when the milk finally comes in, your boobs expand exponentially and your nipples almost disappear. DS did his best but just kept bouncing off - he couldn't latch on because there was very little to latch onto. I was in tears and finally spoke to someone from the NCT who suggested warm flannels and pumping the excess away.
Took 6 weeks to really get into my stride and ditch the occasional top-ups of formula. DS then fed for 13 months and moved from below 50 centile to top the 98th when he finally decided he wanted a bottle instead (had to give in 'cause he'd started nursery and I wasn't able to express enough for his needs - the toilets in work weren't really very comfortable and all I had available during the day.).

I had to stay in for 5 days with DS2. The night duty midwife kept telling me that the baby kept crying because he was hungry (actually the IV in his foot was more likely). She kept telling me that my breasts were too engorged for him to latch on and that I should express the milk and give it to him in a bottle.

After 2 nights of this I flipped, took myself into the expressing room, expressed 2 FULL BOTTLES which DS2 then refused to take because he really wasn't hungry.

If I had been a first time mother with no bf confidence, she would have ruined any hopes I had. . As it was, she just became the focus of my hormonal rages

It's not particularly relevant to this thread actually, except to say that you are doing an amazing and valuable thing. Just tell them all that they are doing brilliantly, even if we need a little guidance - that's what most of us want to hear.

• that it makes your toes curl, literally, when you start, it's normal and doesn't last long;

• that mastitis is painful but you can get through it and still breastfeed - my GP was fab and supported me throughout

• it's a lot less hassle than making up formula

• it's not a competition to see how long you can breastfeed for. Go with your own decisions.

• Finally, it gives a wonderful sense of achievement; can honestly say, it's one of the best things I've done and I loved it!

mathsmadmummy i had a great experience with east surrey too. was supposed to go to haywards heath but ended u going in an ambulance to east surrey and the support was so much better. no one grabbed my boob and shoved it in, and telling me lying down feeding positions was a life saver. this baby was the third and the best bf support yet. i gave up with the other two but dd2 is still bf now.

• Different size boobs mean that the baby will breastfeed differently, and there are some positioning that are better for larger boobs and others for smaller boobs.
• Sometime syou have the feeling that you have to BF for 'hours' for baby to feel settled, especially in the evenings.
• Most babies BF or bottle fed are unsettled in the evening, I find (with me and most of my mum friends). They seem to want to eat and eat and eat at around 6 pm until forever, and that's quite hard if you have other children
• Tips on how to handle older children when BF (emotionally as well as practically)
• a photo reference is a good idea, I used photos from a NHS brochure but the ladies had huge boobies on the photos. I have small boobs and oculdn't do the same way they did on the photo.
• For example, I remember trying a breast pump, and it said 'please make sure that the suction cup covers the entire nipple area' and for me, it actually covered the ENTIRE boob so the pump didn't work!
• It can and will probably hurt at one point
• that if you don't BF, it's not a failure!

That you might be allergic/sensitive to lanolin and pretty much all nipple creams contain this, except for Bio-Fem at Boots. I couldn't understand why BFing was painless but 10 mins after a feed (i.e. when I applied lansinoh) I wanted to chop my boobs off such was the agony of lansinoh.