MSE Pregnancy Club 25

Sa-ra-ra-ra

Rups32 wrote: »

regarding bf, i have heard too about midwives forcing women. some of us can do it and some cant. its not somehting we can help right?

I think it's more that for some people it comes easier than others. Theoretically, there's no reason that pretty much everyone couldn't bf, however you have to take into consideration the mother's health, mental state, and (to some extent) pain threshold. A traumatic birth can affect milk flow, preemies find it harder to suckle, tongue tie in the baby, poor latch, inverted nipples, lack of support, etc etc etc...

I think the thing you have to remember is that it's your choice. I'm going to try and bf. If it works, hurrah. If it doesn't, well, I gave it a go. There is no way you can look at a group of 2, 5, 10, 20 year olds and say which ones were bf and which ones were ff, so it clearly doesn't make that much difference to the children, and if you're crying in pain or baby isn't getting enough milk or having serious problems, surely it's better all round to make sure that you're both in a good state of mind and well fed?

Breast probably is best. But that doesn't mean formula is bad, it just means it's not the bestest. A friend of mine ended up with quite severe PND which she thinks was contributed to because she was struggling with bf and had no support, and it took her doctor saying 'well, why don't you just give baby a bottle?' for her to feel like she had permission to stop. You have to do what works for you, and your baby, and your family.

dizsiebubba

OH could feel and see baby kicking around 26-27 weeks in my case hun but everyone is different...although it is my first, everything has happened earliar than the midwife said it would even with an anterior placenta

Now I have babies kick waking me up in the night!

tattoo-

I've got some breastfeeding worries is it quicker to express milk rather than breastfeed? I really don't think I can handle a baby sucking on my nipples for hours everyday but I do want what's best for baby. Does expressing hurt as much? Sorry for all the questions

Gillyx

In my hospital they didn't force breast feeding at all, in fact they were more pushing formula on you in my opinion.

tattoo expressing is a pest and time consuming. As well as the expressing you have to serilise the pump and bottles. You feel a bit like a cow My boy wouldn't latch, so I expressed, I had to get up in the middle of the night, while my OH fed baby, and express. You have to do it 7/8 times in a 24 hour period to keep your supply up. It doesn't hurt at all, I used a medela swing, and it was a good pump. Some people find they don't get much milk out at all when expressing but they can feed baby fine. It's hard to know what'l happen.

If you can give your baby the colostrum, that's amazing, after that it's your choice what to do What's best for you, is best for baby. There is no point breastfeeding if you're not keen, as in those first few weeks, you don't want anything bringing you down, that you can prevent. My boy was FF from 4 weeks old, and he's a terror and advancing brilliantly. xxx

CL

tattoo- wrote: »

I've got some breastfeeding worries is it quicker to express milk rather than breastfeed? I really don't think I can handle a baby sucking on my nipples for hours everyday but I do want what's best for baby. Does expressing hurt as much? Sorry for all the questions

I BF DD until she was over 7 months. I couldn't get her to latch on for 3 days, but perservered while giving her top ups of formula until BF was established.

I found that for the first 3 weeks, BF hurt. Not crying painful, but quite sore. I had been told if you stick it out 3-4 weeks, it wasn't even uncomfortable after that. I found that to be totally true.

Expressing took longer than actually feeding. You have to express first, which took as long as actually feeding the baby, then feed the baby a bottle, then wind the baby (which I never had to do when BF). Also, a bottle would occasionally come back up, a BF never did.

I would definitely recommend trying BF. Even if just for an easy life for yourself. No getting up to make bottles in the middle of the night, very little winding needed, the baby is unlikely to have colic or reflux. I just felt that it made for a more content baby.

I'm not lecturing, but I think people overlook the fact it can make their own life easier, but I wouldn't be a mayrtr and torture myself if it didn't work out. Everyone is different.

Rups32

ah how sweet. i want to feel all that and kept awake because of kicks. i know something is going on inside which is good. i was asleep today and felt those pulses so woke up to eat. they still happend after for a bit and now i am having a cup of tea its all quiet.

i would love to bf too but like you said whatever is meant to happen, will happen and all we can do is try.

dizziblonde

savageHK wrote: »

if you believe the pro-breastfeeding crowd, practically any breast can breastfeed, only a very very small minority can't. I have two breastfeeding books lurking in my to-read pile, will see what they say!

Yep I'm sure my breasts could - unfortunately my baby didn't get the memo and couldn't (so of course I don't fall into the "acceptable" 1% with an "excuse" trumpetted by lactivists). I fell into the trap of feeling like I had to justify myself and explain our "story" endlessly to start with - now I'm afraid when I get some uppity witch making comments when I'm in a cafe with a bottle out - I just snarl at them "problem?" and make them go away that way.

It's going in my birth plan (which will be written at 24 weeks - viability point - this time... not getting caught out again). I'm planning on putting something along the lines of "I do not wish to be given breastfeeding literature (I have it all from 5 months ago - save the chuffing paper), I will be making a decision based upon how I feel after the birth and I do not expect ANY pressure put on me regarding the decision by any staff member. In the event we end up with another premature baby in NICU - I will be happy to express milk using the hospital pumps, however I will NOT be prolonging a hospital stay in order to go home breastfeeding and if the baby is unable to latch and maintain a latch - I will be bottle feeding a combination of expressed milk and formula - and I do not expect any pressure to the contrary - I understand the implications regarding maintaining supply and the probability of ending up on formula in my choice to do so." Yes it may sound incredibly tersely worded but it's from our experience last time and there are reasons behind every bit of it.

Last time - well I've said I was appallingly treated during the birth - didn't get to see her and was subsequently wheeled into NICU, pointed at an incubator and then told to get out for the night... and then I was dumped on a ward with women and their babies - had a breastfeeding leaflet literally slung at me - and a gobful of it chucked at me when I pointed out that it was a bit insensitive and impractical considering my baby was a floor away in an incubator. They're not doing that to me again.

Whatever rubbish people mutter about "oh everyone can breastfeed"- my baby didn't get the memo - she was too small, too sleepy, too immature to latch - I pumped dutifully, did endless NG tube feeds - including the bit I was really uncomfortable with of having to aspirate a bit of the stomach contents to check the PH level and that the tube was in correctly - they basically told me to get lost - they weren't helping me with that - and when I flagged up days that the tube had come unsited (her being a nightmare for pulling at it) - I was a problem there. I was told to attempt to latch her every feed first before putting feed down the tube - an exercise in futility - she desperately wanted to have the idea - but she'd lap away like a kitten at a saucer of milk, couldn't do it... after a week of utterly no progress whatsoever, when my mental health was becoming completely decimated (bearing in mind I carried this label of a "difficult" patient - because I'd asked one nurse to just leave me and my husband for five minutes to discuss something and pointed out I'd made that request five times and been ignored - so was treated accordingly, had had a social services referral chucked at me - again from the nurse taking umbrage at a polite request - so felt constantly under scrutiny), I actually caught myself considering giving her up and putting her into care just so I could get out of the place (the food was inedible, I'd sob every mealtime at the thought of going hungry again - and I have low standards!)... even when you tried to get her to latch staff would just barge in on me trying to manhandle this tiny tiny thing onto my humongous nipple and completely disregard any concept of privacy or stress or human dignity - they'd even walk off and leave the curtains open - in the middle of visiting time.

So yeah, I asked about the possibility of trying to feed her expressed milk (topped up with formula which we were having to do anyway) in a bottle... and the minute I asked that - the wonderful wonderful nurse who was the one person in that place with any compassion and understanding (she'd had a prem baby herself - hell she later took time out of her work evening to call me up and see how we were doing post-discharge - when the hospital had washed their hands of us totally) told me, "I wasn't allowed to tell you before - but you're doing the right thing - you'd be looking at 2-3 weeks minimum extra to stay in here and go home breastfeeding and you and I both know you wouldn't cope with that"... and she fed - she took a whole 12 ml (I can still remember the exact figures now) of the 38ml they'd declared she needed to be fed at that point... and I sobbed with relief at the first sign of progress we'd made since the whole horrific admission.

Course they deliberately have it set up for maximum arkwardness - you had to do the walk of shame up to the desk to ask for formula and teats - and despite the fact that I was getting a teat to put on a bottle of expressed milk - I had a day of having to walk past the most unpleasant sneery smug lactivist mum known to man... who tutted, and muttered, and commented... so I'm afraid I left the curtains around my bed open the following feed - made her see me begging and coaxing this tiny thing to feed, followed by putting the rest of the feed down her nasal tube - I hoped it might teach this witch a bit of humility... it stopped the muttering and tutting at least - perhaps next time she comes across someone bottle feeding in Starbucks she might think twice before going into judgemental meltdown mode.

Went home expressing and topping up with formula... and my life basically went - pump - get food into baby, do nappy mid-change (we had to keep trying to wake her up to take a full feed - and I was terrified of readmission for lack of weight gain) - pray baby went to sleep to pump again... I was getting no chance to enjoy being a mum, I felt like a dairy cow, I was taking drugs to increase my supply (that I now find out have suspected health risks - they were quite happy to throw them at me to keep me on the blessed altar of breastfeeding)... and the motor on my breastpump burnt out... so I took the hint and knocked it on the head.

So not only do I take all the judgy sneers when out and about, I've been hounded out of at least one mum's group that met up for being an evil bottle feeder... I also have the mental health scars from the prolonged stay in hospital where they would quite happily have shredded my mental health altogether (I'd been at the point of considering suicide) in order to bump up their breastfeeding figures.... hence my utter hatred of lactivists who just trumpet the 1% statistic and pat themselves on the back as having successfully destroyed another woman's self esteem.

The reason I'd DO the pumping again in the event of another preemie is purely to reduce the risk of NEC - there is no way on this earth I'd put myself through the hell I went through last time - and if anyone even tries to make me - I'll be making official complaints left right and centre.

My midwife actually was lovely, my health visitor was lovely - both advised me that if I saw the need to give up pumping - do so - as long as the guilt of it wasn't going to overpower the gruelling life chained to a breast pump. The hospital staff - are too flipping scared to even mention bottles exist - they'd have literally reduced me to nothing to hit their breastfeeding targets.

So don't ever sit on here and trumpet that "all women can breastfeed"... "bottle feeders are lazy" or any of that crap because I almost killed myself (I'm still a mental wreck now) to live up to everyone's blooming expectations of me.

I'm going to be a lot harder going in this time - I'm prepared to raise a ruckuss if I'm bullied or badly treated.

Gillyx

The thing about reflux is a myth btw, breast milk is thinner, and reflux is due to the esophagus not being closed over properly, so breast milk will come back up easily.

If your baby has reflux too, it's generally easier to treat in bottle fed babies as meds can be added to bottles etc.

I know the pediatrician I seen, would recommend Formula feeding for severe reflux.

Rups32

wow just knowing how to bf is an art. so when you initially express, can you do it yourself using fingers (as i once saw on a picture) or do you have to use a pump? ouch... my friend said initially bf for her was so painful but it got better. so much to learn here. i swear no one can force me though to do something i cant do and i wont have people touch me left, right and centre too. will warn DH about that. lol.

also when do you start writing out your birth plan? and how do you sort out a tour with your hospital? and at what stage? thanks.

fluffnutter

tattoo- wrote: »

I've got some breastfeeding worries is it quicker to express milk rather than breastfeed? I really don't think I can handle a baby sucking on my nipples for hours everyday but I do want what's best for baby. Does expressing hurt as much? Sorry for all the questions

Here are my thoughts on breastfeeding. Just my opinion of course, but hopefully it's of use.

It's not really quicker to express, tattoo. It's got the following disadvantages (IME).

* Babies are more efficient than a breast pump at getting the milk they need.
* The fore-milk comes first to quench their thirst then the hind-milk which has all the fat and makes them feel sated and sleepy. It works really well that it comes in this sequence as baby will take what they need (which can vary between feeds). If you express and bottle-feed it's all mixed up. Plus when you express it's not always easy to know that you're on to the hind-milk so you run the risk of giving your baby feeds made up solely of fore-milk which won't be great for weight gain.
* You need to express at the same time (or thereabouts) as your baby needs a feed to ensure that your supply meets his/her demand. This means you have to feed baby then express which makes everything twice as long - not great at night.
* Sterilising bottles can be a real pain.

Most importantly... having the baby at your breast is fantastic for bonding. You'd miss out on this is you expressed.

Of course it does have its advantages - someone else can feed your baby and you're less tied to their routine. TBH though, I had to express for a while because my booby was so sore and I was so glad to get back to feeding him directly as it's just so much less hassle.

One last thing - breastfeeding is hard at first. They're not too honest about this (perhaps understandably). If you're keen to do it, don't give up easily. Get help and most importantly, get your latch checked. Keep getting help until you've got the hang of it. If you feel like giving up in the first couple of weeks, please don't. It does get easier I promise. By week 4 you'll be laughing. It's so nice once it all comes together - you won't regret it.