Breastfeeding Woes
To breast-feed or to formula feed? This is the hot topic for any new mum, in fact, it’s all anybody talks about when you have a newborn.
During my pregnancy, I was sure that I would breastfeed and didn’t even contemplate formula as an option. I bought breastfeeding covers and had a breast pump at the ready.
Breastfeeding is difficult at the best of times but we had a rocky start following Jacob’s birth. He had to go into ICU immediately after birth which meant I couldn’t have skin to skin. So before I could even start breastfeeding, I had the unfortunate task of hand expressing to get my milk flow going. This was important so I could get colostrum to Jacob, it just meant that I had to hand express into a 2.5ml syringe which let me tell you, took a lot of effort on a hot summers day in a stuffy hospital room. The only consolation was that I happened to be sharing my room with someone else who was also hand expressing and recovering from a cesarean with her baby on Neonatal. This helped me massively to have someone going through the same experience. We would end up laughing at how ridiculous the situation was or crying because it hurt to laugh.
Although hand expressing was grueling, it was also quite rewarding to know he was getting the good stuff. Once I had done a day of hand expressing, it was time to use the breast pump. The pumps used in the hospital I would later realise were the mother of all pumps. They were called Medela and had an initiation setting on them which was great for the first couple of days of expressing.
My first attempt at breastfeeding was met with trepidation but the nurse who passed him to me was fantastic and Jacob actually latched on quite quickly although not for long. There were a lot of wires to contend with and alarms going off left right and center. Throw in the fact that I was wearing a mask during the hottest time of year and I think it went quite well!
Thinking that breastfeeding might get easier with each try was a naive thought. Some days it was difficult to get him to latch at all and if he became too fractious, the nurses would end up offering him the bottle so he got fed in some way.
During his time on the Neonatal unit, I had to make the decision to allow the nurses to bottle feed him when I couldn’t be there - Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this meant no visits in the morning as the Doctors were doing their rounds and this would have meant too many people on the unit.
Of course, this also meant that breastfeeding became even more challenging as he was getting used to the bottle which was always easier for him to get milk from. This didn’t stop me from trying though and some days I had great success, he would latch on really well for 20 minutes on each side and then drift off to sleep. These were the days I felt more positive and would always get more milk when I was expressing.
My milk supply was always an issue as I wasn’t sleeping great and felt quite stressed during his time in Hospital. A quick tip: stressing out about your milk supply will make you produce even less. I remember being told by nurses to make sure I was expressing in the early hours of the morning as this is when your hormone levels are at their highest which means you produce more. I would set an alarm to wake me up and sometimes I could only produce 20ml on each side because I was feeling low and probably not eating the best due to being back and to the hospital.
I would place any milk I had expressed into the fridge at the hospital. Every mother had a dedicated box in the fridge to store all of their precious cargo so you could see how much everyone else was producing. At times it was soul-destroying to see what other mums had produced
When we brought Jacob home, I thought breastfeeding might get easier but unfortunately, it didn’t as I found even less time to express. He was quite impatient when it came to feeds so as soon as I brought him to the breast he would get even more upset to the point where latching on was not an option for him (we would later realise that he had other reasons for being cranky) so… out-came the bottle of expressed milk mixed with formula.
I spent a large amount of time conflicted as to whether I should quit expressing and just formula feed. My husband would reassure me that it was ok to formula feed, we just needed to make a decision either way and in the end, my body made the decision for me as my milk eventually just dried up.
I remember breaking down during one of my visits from the health visitor and she told me that what's most important is that baby gets fed, whether that's breastfed or bottle-fed and also that mother is happy. This made me feel content with my decision but also proud that I had managed to express and feed him my milk for the 1st month.
Had Jacob not been in Hospital for so long, I think I would have put all of my efforts into breastfeeding and sought out help from lactation consultants. I knew breastfeeding was going to be challenging as I know friends who have struggled for months before getting into any kind of rhythm but I had the extra challenge of trying to establish feeding whilst Jacob was hooked up to monitors and by the time he was discharged from hospital, I didn’t have much left in me emotionally to push through with breastfeeding. But 6 months on I think I have finally come to terms with Jacob being a formula-fed baby.
