Elective Cesarean and breastfeeding? Possible?

[getthecakeready]

I have an ELCS planned for 38 weeks. Also, the baby is very small (5th centile..).. I have breastfed 2 babies without any issues so far (one of them an EMCS).

I read on here that "elective CS increases the time for the milk to come in. normal births will take 3-4 days, sometimes you will need to add on 1-2 days when you have a caesarean, but more so during an elective. The reason being is that labour (so if you have normal birth or emergency caesarean in labour) tells the breasts that the baby will be coming soon. if you have an elective caesarean your body has no idea what is about to happen as it hasn't laboured, so it takes a couple of days to catch up with the milk..." (thanks for that info btw!)

This makes sense..

So i guess the "slow" starting of the milk and the fact that baby is small will mean that the midwives will tell me to "top up". Have you managed to establish breastfeeding even though you topped up already in hospital? (I am happy to do what the midwives say is best for the baby...)

How did breastfeeding go if you had an ELCS?

I had an elective with DS2, and I expressed colostrum in between him feeding which meant that my milk came in quicker than it had with DS1 who was EMCS and very sleepy. He didn't need a drop of formula.

One emcs and 2 elcs at 38 weeks. I bf all of them, I did top up with formula briefly with my second as I picked up a bug in hospital and was unwell myself. No problem getting bfing established due to cs though.

I've had 3 elective (& one emergency) sections - no problems at all with breastfeeding. Milk has come in on day 2 or 3 each time (no later than when I did labour) - they all fed either in theatre or in recovery & establishing feeding/milk supply has never been an issue :)