Traumatised by breastfeeding

[BethGibbs20]

Hello, looking for some advice on a way forward and to see if any women have had similar experiences.

I had my first child in 2020, he was born via planned cesarean as he was breached, this all went smoothly and he was born by 10am.

I had mentioned to the midwives I would like to breastfeed and didn't expect it to be so hard! Firstly, I was never told in my midwife appointments about colostrum, due to lockdown a lot of appointments were cancelled and only the urgent ones went ahead and she never mentioned it, being my first baby I didn't know to ask either.

Anyway, I spent the entire day trying to hand pump my breast to get things going, multiple midwives continued to hand pump me and my partner...this went on all day, afternoon and night- bearing I mind I was on morphine and exhausted and also struggling with that my baby was NOT latching whatsoever.

By about 2 am, still trying to get baby to latch and exhausted of midwives "milking" me I needed a wee, so slowly got out of my bed which did take a few minutes, with that a student midwife has burst into my room and told me off as my baby is crying, poor baby was tired and hungry to as I was struggling to get a lot of colostrum and he wasn't latching- anyway, she forcefully grabbed my breast and begun trying to pump me and force my nipple into my babys mouth, she soon left and I just burst into tears absolutely hysterical, to which another midwife came in and tried to comfort me so I explained I was so exhausted and my baby wasn't latching, so she continued to try and make baby latch. It was honestly not how I imagined my first night with my baby to be, I felt like a cow on a milk farm, when I asked for my baby to have a top up feed I was told we would undo all of our hardwork, but I eventually said we have to give him formula as it just wasn't happening.

I was then swamped by lactation specialists and the following day was a similar theme. I decided to pump milk with an electric pump at home and everytime I.got the pump out a wave of negative feeling would come over me and was so intense, it would go the moment I stopped pumping.

I managed to keep it up for about 5 months but felt so low everytime and now 10 months on I feel repulsed whenever my partner tries to touch my breast, it makes me feel sick and I feel almost traumatised about them and never want to think about breastfeeding again! I just felt that the midwives really didn't care for my wellbeing and I look back on the 1st night with my baby and am really sad! Has anyone else had a similar situation and how did you overcome it xx

Oh poor you, that sounds terrible. I wasn't treated like you were at all, but with my 2nd baby I experienced the terrible wave of sadness during letdown every time. It was truly awful, I hated breastfeeding but felt I had to as I had BF my first son for 6 months and I didn't want to treat my 2nd baby differently. And since then I can't bear my breasts being touched - it makes me feel a bit sick. It's definitely had a negative effect on my sex life! I wish I could say those feelings went away but for me they didn't. However I didnt have the horrible experience of being manhandled etc- for me it really was a bizarre hormonal reaction to BF which has sadly lingered. But you are not alone in your feelings, and you are not wrong for feeling angry and hurt. I do hope things get better for you.

What was done to you was absolutely not ok. No-one should have touched you without your informed and explicit consent. I have no experience of BF’ing but being ‘milked’ by a stranger sounds completely degrading. If your breasts needed stimulation the midwives should have told you what to do - not touched you like that.

If you feel able to, I would make a complaint. Please be assured that you did nothing wrong, infact you did astoundingly well to continue to BF after this trauma.