Article contribution for The Mule

I was always adamant I was going to breastfeed my children. I had been breastfed, I had watched as my brother had been breastfed and I had watched my Aunt breastfeed two of my cousins. I was a child of the 70's, instinctively knew somehow that attatchment parenting was where it was at and breastfeeding was MY norm!

My eldest son was born in late June 1998, at 34weeks gestation, by emergency caesarean under general anaesthetic due to very severe pre-eclampsia. He spent his first two weeks on SCBU. He was born without his sucking reflex so the morning after the night I nearly died twice (once from the pre-eclampsia, once from an uncalabrated morphine administering machine (was getting morphine every time i clicked), I found my way to the milk room and began expressing because my baby's life depended on it. Armed with my polaroid picture of my tiny baby boy I sat expressing for his tube feeds at every available oppurtunity and Every drop he had down his tube was my collustrum and then milk.

My Mum flew up the motorway to be with us and it is down to her and her alone that I managed to breastfeed my boy at all. I repeatedly asked the scbu staff to see the lactation specialist, the breastfeeding support ... was told that that lady was on holiday and nobody else was available. I asked about kangaroo care and was practically laughed at. One nurse tutted at my inverted left nipple and told me I'd never be able to feed babies with *that* .He began to latch on and feed from me so they had us into the overnight room and we spent two days and nights trying so hard to exclusively feed... i was up against it... he *had* to gain a certain amount of weight or they wouldn't let him out... i was only 24 years old and i didn't know any different... our last night in hospital i asked them to give him a cup feed with some expressed milk I still had in the fridge from his tube feeds and i was scorned by midwives and made to feel like i was failing. The following morning my then husband argued with the nurses that we were taking our baby home (little man was an ounce below their cut-off point) and so we went home. A special care midwife came out every day to us and me and her would spend hours trying to get little man to latch on and feed well. Through the course of this week he lost precious weight and energy. Every feed was hell, he was ravenous but didn't have the energy to suck the milk from me. My body was racing with adrenalin and oxytocin was nowhere to be seen :( I didn't know anything about the physiology of breastfeeding and neither did the lady who was trying to help me... there was nowhere to turn and so after just a week of demand breastfeeding, i turned to formula milk and my little man began to thrive. It was only after he began formula milk that I enjoyed feeding him and could enjoy skin on skin and bonding cuddles. I was heartbroken. I was a failure of a woman. My body broke and nearly killed me and my son and then it broke some more and couldn't nourish my baby boy. A diagnosis of Post traumatic stress disorder was given alongside some intense counselling and debriefing when my son was about 10months old.

In February 2008 I unexpectedly found myself pregnant again. I did an awful lot of research into VBAC and a whole lot more research into breastfeeding. When my second son was born after an emergency caesarean done under epidural, at 12 days post dates, I was elated.I'd declined morphine as pain relief and was so glad I had :) He latched on like a dream in recovery and I was buzzing on the labour I had experienced even though it had ended in another section. My boobs seemed to remember what to do, even after all those years I knew the difference between the different sorts of sucks. I had gotten so angry whilst pregnant that I had held onto so much guilt about stopping breastfeeding my eldest. Blessed with a super fast internet connection (we didn't even have the internet back in '98) I was able to absorb so much information. I got an Avent Nipplette to draw my nipples out and wasn't going to let that awful nurse's words from ten years previous bring me down.

The first two weeks of feeding my middle son went like a dream. He was gaining weight well and it didn't hurt and I was flying.... and then all of a sudden I developed a huge hole in the side of my left nipple. It was the most inverted one and as my son had gotten stronger, his suck had pulled the nipple out particularly ferociously during the course of several feeds. I was in a mess. Each feed from that side was searing pain that didn't stop. No matter what position we tried to feed from it hurt. I tried nipple shields which just hurt even more. The Health Visitor was brilliant and referred us straight away to a lactation nurse. She came out and saw us and advised me to phone our local La Leche League lady, which I did. I was given the advice to stop trying to feed off the damaged side, to let it heal. I expressed from that side for a week and we gave the EBM to our son in a bottle. Without the support of the local La Leche League group I would have definatley not had the confidence to continue. They were amazing and got me back to feeding from both sides although the supply never really picked back up fully on that side and my son always preferred the right side.
We just got over the nipple damage and then other strange things started happening. He was very collicky and I would have to wind him during a breastfeed. Every time I fed him he sounded like a drain.. milk in one end... straight through and out the other end as delightful green pippy nappies. I began to feel very insecure again about my ability to breastfeed and had feelings like my milk was bad in someway. I had really tender and sore milk glands but no symptoms of thrush or mastitis...La Leche League again were a tower of strength and I was taught about Over - Active let down reflex. Once I had read the advice sheet and also a book that they lent me, it all made perfect sense. I had been using alternate boobs every feed, so I swapped to making sure that I only ever swapped boob when I was certain the other one was practically empty. I also took to feeding him whilst laying on my side on the bed. I would also hand-express a little before a feed just to get things flowing and that seemed to help aswell. Without La Leche I would almost certainly have given up breastfeeding through lack of confidence in my own abilities. With their wonderful support however, I breastfed my second son until I was 10 - 12 weeks pregnant with my daughter. He was fed almost exclusively breastmilk apart from one bottle a day of formula from 4 months. He began baby-led weaning at 5 and a half months. His first food was a strawberry he grabbed from my hand. He self-weaned from the breast at 8 months. Our breastfeeds had dwindled over the space of a fortnight to just being a bed-time thing and we had 2 feeds that were intense for both of us. He pulled on and off several times before getting angry with the boobie and being content with a bottle. I suddenly found that my nipples were unbarely sensitive and that I didn't actually want him latching on to me. I was in close contact with La Leche through this transition and I feel very supported and very comfortable that our breastfeeding relationship came to a natural and mutually decisive end.

My daughter was born in March 2010. At 16days post dates she was a beautiful, peaceful, healing, empowered and as natural as we could manage elective caesarean.We got virtually instant skin on skin but unfortunatley I had to ask her daddy to take her as I had to concentrate. The surgeon had had to cut higher up my uterus because of internal scarrings and adhesions incasing my "gnarly" lower uterus. This meant my bowel was "problematic". After my beautiful empowering caesarean birth, I had to go to depths of myself I have never had to before... the mission was on... operation STAY AWAKE NO MATTER WHAT!!! Once again I'd only allowed them to put in the minimum amount of morphine to get me through the operation, and because of the problems this had now worn off and I could feel everything. This was the moment the birth warrior was born. I declined morphine several times and also declined being "sent to sleep" twice. Instead I did the most powerful self-healing reiki treatment on myself plus a SHED load of hypnotherapy.. we got through it ;) Hear My Roar!!! My daughter had been born so peacefully and nothing was going to wreck it! ;) She was fine fast asleep in her Dad's arms :) he handed her over and she latched on like a dream :)

I fed her literally every time she so much as squeeked. By this time I was bang up to date on everything I could get my hands on to do with breastfeeding. My milk came in.. get this... the night between day 2 and 3 ;) She fed her little bum off bless her heart :) Later on the afternoon of the day she was born, a midwife wheeled in an incubator because my little one was a bit cold. They didn't really like the fact that all she had on was a nappy and I had her either latched on naked or naked between my breasts. They kept bleating on about how she was cold and then when I saw the incubator I went as ballistic as I could do, off my head on oxytocin :p Hear My Roar! My bestfriend/soulsister/doula was with me and when I told them to take the incubator away as my daughter wasn't going anywhere except for right between my breasts, she squared her shoulders and told the midwife we didn't need the incubator thankyou. Then she somehow balanced herself on the edge of the bed and wrapped me and my daughter up as much as she could :) The night my milk came in was a nightmare. I was feeding on demand, my baby girl was working hard to get her milk in. I was in the worst pain of my life from the drain inserted right across my abdomen and I had a bitch midwife on duty who was in the particularly perverse practice of denying pain relief medication!! When I *eventually* got hold of my drugs sheet I noticed that she left me go 6 hours without any medication other than the morphine she conned me into thinking that was all I could have... bitch.. she got the full explosion of my roar that night ;) I think the whole hospital heard my roar. She took my daughter off me for 15 minutes until another midwife went and got her back again for me! She told me off for sitting perched on the side of the bed feeding (it was the only position i could rest in that wasn't excruatingly painful). Day 3 the paediatrician starts muttering because my daughter had lost 11% of her birth weight. At this point I started to get incredibly pissy. I told them i would discharge both of us back to the care of our community midwives, I told them that there was no way I could be expected to establish a good breastfeeding relationship in hospital with all the stress they were putting me under and that I had no doubt in my ability to a) feed my daughter by breast and b) my entire support network of community midwives and la leche league where at home where we needed to be!! They took the drain out that day which was a blessed relief and I think I spent the whole day either breastfeeding or expressing between feeds so the bloody paediatrician could stop stressing!!! I even told them they should be congratulating me because my milk was in, not blathering on at me about a measely 1 bloody percent!!! I think it was also day 3 that I got told off for carrying my daughter around in a pouch sling :D cue a meeting with the maternity manager to first discuss and then challenge hospital protocol.. she left with the name of the sling written down on a peice of paper along with a promise to bring up the whole issue of baby-wearing in hospital at their next policy meeting lol!! Some may call me a gobshite but I knew it was my last baby and it was my last chance to challenge protocol from the inside ;) Assertive! Hear My Roar!!! We were discharged on Day 4 (like they dared to suggest otherwise) and we never looked back. My community midwives were delighted to have us back at home to be able to support us properly. La Leche League were great. I was feeding with supreme confidence. We had no problems at all. She never wanted to take EBM so i never bothered in the end. She never had a dummy either. She fed every 2 hours through the night until her 1st birthday when I moved her out of the bed and the other half moved back in again :) She had her last feed from me a week or so after her second birthday. I wouldn't say it was 100% child-led as I did encourage the wean in the last few weeks mainly because she was mostly dry sucking and it hurt. She only drank breastmilk and the odd drop of water for her first year.
With the benefit of hindsight I can only now (in the last month or two) look back at my experience with my eldest and know that what little feeding I did do, was a truly amazing thing, given the heartbreaking lack of respect and support. That experience destroyed an already practically destroyed Me and I carried that heartbreak, guilt and sense of failure for a bloody long time... I had no self confidence in my ability to breastfeed when my middle son was born and La Leche League and some brilliant friend's who were also feeding at the same time, kept me strong, focussed and helped me set acheivable goals. My self confidence was un-shakable when I had my daughter because I was as informed as I could be, as educated as I could be and could advocate for myself with confidence.
I am now an NHS trained breastfeeding peer supporter and trainee Doula :) I help run a weekly breastfeeding peer support group in Wincanton, Somerset and I also help at the antenatal breastfeeding workshops we have locally.