Postnatal ward staff forceful with breastfeeding latch.. anyone had a similar experience??

[SamG93]

Hi, I'm just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience to me..

I had a CS last Thursday and all went well.. in recovery the midwife helped me to do skin-to-skin with my baby to encourage his first feed. She put him into position then literally shoved my boob into his mouth.. quite forcefully.. which didn't work.. he'd latch on for a few seconds then stop sucking and detach himself. I didn't really think anything of it as I've never been in this situation before. Then on the postnatal ward we were having the same problem with latching and every single member of staff who helped me did the same thing... every time ending in frustration and crying from my poor baby. They also encouraged other positions and skin-to-skin but nothing really worked. They saw him latch knowing he would detach himself after a few seconds and then they'd leave and say to buzz if I need any help.. I felt so alone and helpless that I couldn't feed him, also knowing that if I did buzz for help they would just do the same thing each time and then leave without having really helped. They wouldn't let me go home unless feeding had been established so I asked to use the pump and have been exclusively using EBM ever since.

I've since read that babies should be allowed to use their natural instincts to find the breast and latch on themselves and feel that them being forceful with him may have actually hindered his experience with breastfeeding.

Of course I've tried having him near the breast and doing skin-to-skin and he does try to latch with a big open mouth but he just can't do it and gets upset before I give him the bottle. I'm still trying once a day but with no luck.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience?? I know they want to get you out of the hospital ASAP with a feeding plan but I don't think that's the right way surely.. I really do think this is what's ruined breastfeeding for me and my LO.. I really wanted it to work and just feel let down to be honest.

YES! I experienced this and it was fucking horrendous. Terrible latch and painful nipples.

Get in touch with La Leche League (free support) who are amazing.
Watch lots of YouTube videos. Let baby latch themselves. Get confident with unlatching and retrying.

Basically lie in bed with your boobs out (and have baby just in a nappy as skin to skin helps) and spend the next few days mastering the technique.

Nothing wrong with EBF but it's a major faff. It's easily days still so you can get this back.

This sounds like DS1, he just wouldn’t stay latched. They said to buzz but it was literally they would leave & he would unlatch. We went to formula in the hospital. I was distraught, he was so sleepy & went into bottles pretty much from day 1 as I could not get him to stay latched.

The whole shove him on your breast thing is normal in my experience (although with DS3 I did it myself). I honestly had a completely different experience with DS2 as he would stay latched, he was like a Hoover from birth. I don’t know why DS1 wouldn’t latch but from my experience it was nothing to do with the way the midwifes try to latch them on, but just how he was as a newborn.

I hope he manages to latch soon, I know how stressful it is. I ended up breastfeeding DS2 for 3 years & currently bf 3 month DS3, but just couldn’t manage it with DS1

I suppose they’re at least making an effort albeit not very helpful - I got next to no support at all and discharged myself against advice. They initially asked if I wanted to stay or go home - I said I’d like to stay so I can get support with feeding because he didn’t latch straight away, then they said they wanted to keep me in until feeding was established. After 5 hours of no help I was like ‘well you’re not helping me, someone just keeps saying ‘someone will come and help soon’, so I might as well have gone straight home. Not completely their fault, the ward was heaving which I understand. DS didn’t latch until day 9 when he had his tongue tie clipped. See him someone could check for that because it already sounds like tongue tie to me.

MWs etc all seem to think that BF always works IME, but it doesn’t! Some babies just can’t do it. I was willing and spent ages stuffing my boob into his mouth as demonstrated by staff but he never latched once.
Early babies can’t always do it especially. Don’t feel bad (although you have the right to feel angry at being manhandled/ sexually assaulted by staff!).
Fed is best.

I had similar and it nearly ruined breastfeeding for me. Baby had a really strong latch and suck but it hurt like hell. She shoved him on the boob and he sucked the wrong place, it made it so much worse.

Luckily another midwife showed me the best way to latch a few days later.

I really recommend watching some latching videos on YouTube, they helped me so much with my first. It's great you've pumped every feed so your supply will be good. Can you ask your midwife/health visitor to put you in touch with a breastfeeding consultant?

You need a properly trained breastfeeding consultant such as La Leche or NCT provide - advice is free but you may need to sign up for membership. You might be lucky and find a hospital midwife who has actually done breastfeeding themselves but its hit and miss.

I was very lucky with my first in hospital - a student midwife who had breastfed her own happened to be on shift otherwise DC# would have been on the bottle by the time we left after a traumatic birth. I had the others at home and found community midwives to be more knowledgeable (or maybe just more experienced)

If he is doing okay with the bottle then nipple shields might be a smooth transition while he gets used to the breast

I genuinely could have wrote this.

I gave birth to my baby boy two weeks ago and we were kept in overnight due to a traumatic delivery ending in forceps. I was dead set on breastfeeding and tried so so hard to get him to latch but he was clearly in distress due to injuries he’d sustained from the delivery. I ended up being kept in 4 days because we couldn’t establish a successful latch. They would come in, try him on the boob, which felt quite forceful at times and he would just wriggle and get more and more agitated and upset. I had to hand express colostrum until day 3 when my partner brought me in a hand pump, but my milk still hadn’t come through and they didn’t seem to have a clue how to use the pump. That night i just couldn’t get him to settle at all unless I was standing up and rocking him which hurt like hell due to the third degree tear I’d had. I was running completely on empty having slept 3 hours in total since my labour started and being unable to eat myself as every time I tried to, little man would scream because he wasn’t being held and eventually someone would come and take the food away. I got to the point I felt so dizzy and faint I had to buzz for a midwife and beg them to just set him down so I didn’t pass out with him in my arms. The midwife strongly suggested I just give him a bottle of formula and I knew I needed to as he was clearly starving. I felt so completely defeated.
We’re now expressing and topping up with formula. I’ve had the breast feeding Consultant out to my house to help establish a latch but he just won’t take to it and starts to fuss whenever I try. I’m determined to keep trying but I feel like it’s a lost cause now 😔 It is good however to hear he is gaining weight healthily as really that’s all that matters in the end. And he is at least still getting breast milk, albeit from a bottle.

@TreaslakeandBack sexually assaulted?! Do you really believe the staff are getting sexual kicks from trying to help op breastfeed?

I was in for a week and my lovely midwife tried so hard to get DS to latch but he was having none of it . They allowed me to keep trying but eventually his blood sugar was dropping so he was topped up with a bottle. I tried for 6 weeks to establish BF in all positions but eventually had to accept it was EBF or nothing. I think he was just lazy!

I had a similar experience - not so much the midwives but leaving the hospital exclusively expressing due to baby not being able to latch. I was told by a lot of midwives that I had big boobs and small nipples which made it hard for my baby. I really recommend nipple shields (I used the medela ones) if you want to establish direct breastfeeding, as they sort of artificially make your nipples bigger and also seem more like a bottle teat. Once DD was bigger she learnt to latch without them and I bf her for a year. But I kept her having one bottle a day just to ensure she would still take a bottle which I would also really recommend.

I haven't experienced it personally but you hear it a lot in breastfeeding support so it must unfortunately be very common. I think it's terrible.

Agree you need somebody with proper breastfeeding training/experience - unfortunately, the NHS training for midwives is pretty minimal in terms of BF support and they tend to have experience of the first couple of days and never get any info about how their "help" works out longer term.

Here is where you can look for better support:

NCT
La Leche League
Association of Breastfeeding mothers
Baby Café
Sure Start Centres (if you still have one and they run a support group)
National Breastfeeding Helpline

Google your town + "Breastfeeding support"

lcgb.org/find-an-ibclc/
^ Some of the above will run free or low-cost support groups, some you need to pay to see. It's unfortunate because it means people on lower incomes may miss out, but I would think about comparing the cost of a consultation (or package) against however many tins of formula it works out as - it might work out worth it if it does help you to continue breastfeeding.

Sorry I should have said - all of my initial list should be free to access.

It's just the IBCLC search that may cost you money to hire one as lactation consultants are in private practice and the training etc they have to keep up is quite extensive which is why they can't just practice for free.

I had the same with my first.
I have now breast feed two more babies. What I have learnt is that it really depends on the baby. Both my last two were like limpets. What I would suggest, if I may, is watch as many You Tube Videos; I learnt so much from them.

Ah I had the same OP. Watched all the videos, asked all the midwives and later the health visitor, had a friend come round who was breastfeeding too. Nobody could figure out why he wouldn't latch for long? It just want happened. Switched to just using formula at 8 weeks because I was knackered using the pump and trying to BF and topping up with formula.

I had a really similar problem, and ended up using nipple shields as a PP says - they were a game changer. I remember feeling really frustrated with the midwives at the hospital, they weren't helping as I couldn't replicate what they were doing! I used nipple shields for 6 weeks then was able to stop, and finished breastfeeding just before 2.