Blood loss at delivery affected milk supply

[Antonia79]

Hi, just wanted to see if anyone else has been through this too.

I gave birth to my dd last week, it was a long 24 hour labour and I lost 1.2 litres of blood which was from a large 2nd degree tear. My dd manage to have some breastmilk straight after the delivery. My dd was fine and passed all her initial tests and we stayed in an extra night in hospital due to the blood loss for monitoring. The next day, I noticed I wasn’t producing any milk at all and dd was very tired and lethargic. I gave her formula and held her for hours and she was finally more alert again.

Since being at home, I have tried to hand express and electronically pump to get the milk supply going but I’ve been too exhausted and baby blues hitting me like waves to keep pumping regularly. My dd is a happy baby on formula, she’s beautiful, putting on weight nicely and the midwives/HV are happy with her progress.

I have been stressing out and pressurising myself to pump breastmilk for dd but I’m only scraping 20ml from both breasts and I just cannot keep up with pumping every two hours. At the last midwife appointment today I spoke to her about it which helped a lot. In the end I made the decision to give up on breastfeeding. I want to be free from stress and enjoy my cuddle and feeding time with my dd instead of being anxious about when I put her down I need to get on the breast pump and getting really anxious about providing enough breastmilk.

Since I made the decision, I have felt the anxiousness ease up a lot, however, I’m left feeling a bit guilty and a little bit disappointment in myself. I know the decision I made to go formula is the best decision for my mental state and for my dd as she is thriving. I want to enjoy my time with her while she’s so small and not feel so stressed and anxious.

Has anyone else been through this? How did you cope with it?

Thanks for reading.

Hi OP,

I am in a similar position but still persevering with breastfeeding. DD was born two weeks ago and I had blood loss during the labour as opposed to afterwards.

The second night in hospital we started giving DD formula as she was obviously hungry. My milk didn’t come in until day 5 by which point formula feeding was already established.

I’m still doing short breastfeeds when I can get DD to latch well, but she fusses and cries quite a lot when we try.

I just don’t know if I could forgive myself if I gave up, although I have been very close to it. The HV said we should just stop the top ups completely, but I just can’t let
DD be hungry. It’s just a relentless fucking cycle trying to get off the bottle.

Yes I experienced the same but l wasn't as quick as you were to realise my milk supply was failing and my son ended up being re admitted to hospital very dehydrated and with 15% weight loss. I also struggled on for a few weeks doing breastfeeding/pumping/formula top ups etc every 3 hours and it nearly tipped me over into PND.

FWIW I think you have made the right decision for yourself and your child. It took me a few months to come to terms with my decision to stop but I now look back and wish I'd switched to formula sooner. Don't ever feel like you have to justify your decision to anyone and hope the rest of your recovery goes well.

Thank you both for replying.

Nothisispatrick It’s been 11 days since I gave birth and my milk supply just never really got going at all. She could latch on but got really frustrated as she wasn’t getting much. It broke my heart at first, then I had to get my head around the fact that as long as she’s feeding, whether it be breastmilk or formula, and gaining weight, that’s all that matters. It is difficult, and I was so anxious, worrying about it so much that I was making myself bad over it. It is a hard decision to make but ultimately, I chose to stop because it was best for me and dd was feeding fine. Now I’ve had time to think about the decision, I feel a lot more better than I did this morning when I first confirmed it. It also means that dh can feed her and have bonding time with her too, as well as the grandparents. Do what’s best for you and your baby, it’s your decision to make in the end.

sundaysunday

Thank you so much. I hope you and your son are doing okay now? Just to see that someone else felt I made the right decision makes me feel better and that little bit more confident that I’m going to be okay. Here’s hoping for a relatively quick and hopefully easy recovery!

I wish people would admit that breastfeeding isn’t always possible. I tried for months with DS. Took all the advice and intervention I could. Never had a decent supply.
I was anxious, exhausted, guilty and my baby was suffering. I should have been braver and quit earlier. But I thought if I just tried hard enough it would all work out. I was wrong.
In 20 years your baby won’t care how they were fed. It’s great if you can breastfeed but sometimes it really doesn’t work out.

Thanks, it’s helpful to know others are in the same position.

I am close to giving up, I don’t want my time with her to be full of her squirming and crying. I’m buying nipple shields tomorrow on the recommendation of the HV. If those don’t work I’m done.

Most frustrating part is my supply is fine, but the early bottle feeding has ruined her ability to latch.

@Nothisispatrick
Definitely no tongue tie?

Hi OP

I had a very bad 5L hemmoeage with DD1 and was very ill, ended up on HDU for almost a week. Had transfusions and it did effect my supply but Fenugreek really helped me. I took a therapeutic dose which was something insane like 500mg a day but it worked. Worth a try- breastfed her for 3yrs and tandam fed her with DD2. You can buy it in Holland and Barrett. Couldn’t have done it without it!

Hi op, I was in a similar situation to you and chose to give up breast feeding and move to ff.

Best decision I made. I never regretted it. DS is the happiest little man in the world and we have such a nice relationship, it's clearly not been detrimental.

Hi there.

I just had a baby 6 weeks ago and lost 2.2 litres of blood. I wasn't up to trying to feed the first night as I was so ill and when I did the second day, nothing at all would come. I had three midwives trying to hand express and eventually they said it just wasn't going to happen as my body just wouldn't let anything else go. Baby is bottle fed and thriving. I felt awfully guilty for around 4 weeks and felt I wasn't giving him the best start at life, but now I count my lucky stars we're both here to tell the tale.

No tongue toe. She latched amazingly at the start but my milk took a while to come in and I was worried about her getting enough so started top ups.

I struggled for months.
Second baby was formula fed within a couple of days. I wasn’t going through months of stress and anxiety and pumping and seeing people to get “help” only to fail again. It was the right decision for me.