Breastfeeding (or lack of) at hospital - debrief...

[STARRYSKY]

Im so sorry your BF experience started out so horribly, I feel for everyone in this thread who has been through the same.
I was lucky and had a good BFing class that I attended a week before birth, I was glad I did, else I wouldnt have had a clue either.
The MWs where I was were ok, some very bad, in the end, I just "got on with it" without their help, like I said though, I was lucky (and very grateful) that its been a relatively easy ride for us.
But for my friend, who rang me from her hospital and asked me how many hours between feeds for a 3 day old baby, as she couldnt get a straight answer from anyone there, I was shocked at some of what she was told.
like, dont wake him to feed, I asked how long he had been asleep, oh about 6 hours now, she said, I told her to wake him up and feed him. I then told her that all I did was put him on everytime he made a noise, everytime he woke up. etc.
I think its sad that this seems to be such a common thing, Hope eveything is going well now. xx

[shellbell3]

Ali don't blame yourself, I find sometimes that some midwives forget that new mums don't know what they're doing. Its all a blur those first few hours.
Its never too late to put in a complaint. It doesn't have to be an official one if you don't want it be but you can find out who the patient rep is at the hospital and write him/ her a letter on it. You never know maybe others have had the same issue and they can start looking into it to improve for future mums to be.

[~Saram~]

Same thing happened to me!

Tried to get DS on the breast after birth - no interest. Was told not to worry some babies are very sleepy for the first 24hrs and DS was 4 wks early. Was told he would cry when he needed to feed. Pretty much the whole day went past without a lot of feeding, he would go on, fall asleep so I would put him down. Another 24hrs later I mentioned he had crystals in his urine - was this normal that's when everyone started freaking out! I was to wake him every hour, I was pumping in between (getting nothing and being belittled for not being able to express more than 5 mls) Jaundice set in so he was even sleepier, given formula becuase I wasn't making enough milk, tube feed cause he was so sleepy and had no suck reflex.

One midwife would come in and say attachment was fine, yes of course he was getting enough, next one would be in saying no he needed another formula feed. Ped came in and said no more formula (thank God for him) put us on a supply line with nipple shields every two hours - we went home 5 days after birth soley expressing.

7 days after birth my milk came in and we went on to use nipple shields for the next 9 months and by 3wks he was all breastfed without expressing as much.

With DD she was on the breast within 30 min and I spent the rest of the time in hospital feeding her whenever she stirred :-) I then got in trouble for feeding too often LOL to which I replied I didn't mind and would rather get my milk in and have BF established then worry about how often she was feeding.


I agree there needs to be more consistent advice. Even though at times it is nice to get the different experiences and ideas (like one midwife showing me how to feed lying down etc and different positions) I think that for new mums it would be nice if there was some continuity of info given. When my SIL was pregnant I got her a subscription to ABA and the book "breastfeeding... naturally" which comes with the subscription and she said it was reallly helpful to have had the chance to read that before birth so she knew what was normal.

[fourthontheway]

That sounds like what I went through. It seems to me that if they're serious about promoting breastfeeding they should ALL have lactation qualifications, or not give advice about it! Some of the advice I got was total garbage, and it all contradicted what the last person had said!

Don't feel embarrassed about it, it's not YOUR job, it's THEIR job and they clearly did a bad one. Definitely worth a complaint letter!

[Gigi]

i was planning to bf, if possible, and this is what i did during pregnancy.

Join my local aba group, met the people in it whilst i was pregnant. Listened to their meetings, heard what they went thru (which was a revelation to me) and good education for what i was about to go thru.

Signed up for the 3hour ABA bf-ing class (with your partner) that you do when in your 3rd trimester (that was MUCH more helpful than the hospital bf-ing class).

signed up for ABA subscription which means you get sent their two monthly mag called ESSENCE. i read this from cover to cover each time it arrives - so practical.

From the aba group, and reading posts on bellybelly, i was always warned that the midwife help with bf-ing is very random and inconsistent, so to get around that, i went with the Group Midwifery Practice part of the hospital. That meant i had the same midwife thru pregnancy and for six weeks post natally. I knew she would be there visiting me (home or hospital) so i decided to either ignore or just listen to the midwives in the hospital, and wait for MY midwife to arrive, because i wanted consistent supportive info and i knew she was very positive and pro-bf-ing. In the first few days, she came to see us multiple times a day, it was such a relief to have that continuity. (this is in a public hospital).

we had a complicated labour and i fought after two epidurals (in a breastfeeding friendly hospital) to be allowed to feed my baby 2.5 hours after the complicated c-section. We definately didn't get immediate skin to skin, due to baby being delivered unconscious.

There is SO MUCH mis-information out there, including people you EXPECT would know what to do (medical people working with pregnant women and babies).

Search out private lactation consultants, independent midwives.

online
la leche
australian breastfeeding association

i found in the first two years of my child's life, ANYTHING that went wrong with her, medical people would FIRST say "oh, well stop the breastfeeding and it will be fine". Like it was a stock standard answer, to any baby malady (like reflux, or not sleeping well).

THe WHO reccomendation of feeding until two, and beyond - most medical people i spoke to thought three months or six months was the time to breastfeed for.

Breastfeeding is a time consuming thing to do, although super convenient on many levels, and doing it, made me aware of how UNCHILDFRIENDLY our society is.

There are SO many health benefits to breastfeeding, many that will help my child's future health throughout her life. i reminded myself of that, each time someone tried to talk me out of bf-ing her.

I was pressurised to put her on formula from five months of age (so i coudl have a life apparently). Nevermind that we had actually gotten to a stage where bf-ing was working well for us, my baby was healthy as anything, my supply was fine, no reason to stop at all.

i felt no-one (apart from the ABA) understood how important it was that i keep bf-ing (while i could). i was happy with my choice, but felt pretty alone (in real life) about that choice (everyone else around me ff-ing). Luckily my child's father had gone along to the aba bf0ing class, and has been a good bf-ing cheersquad, you NEED someone in your corner. Our r'ship has dissolved, but at least he has kept supporting the bf-ing r'ship btwn me and my DD. He learnt the benefits and sees them in her heath everyday.

i'm sure i've gone WAY off topic, but by god, this topic gets me fired up. i have no idea why i've had to FIGHT SO HARD to do something positive (bf) my DD.

[MantaRay]

Ali hun, as you can tell from the responses, your experience is all too common. Please don't feel bad. I am so glad that you have posted because it might help someone else who hasn't had their baby yet.

I was the same too when DS1 was born. I thought I didn't need to know any more than we learnt at ante-natal class because the mws would help, and there was an LC at the hossy. How wrong I was!!! The mws really didn't give me the right bfing info at all, and did so many wrong things when trying to help. The LC was one of the mws on shift who happened to have studied bfing and had no time to see me because she was busy with her own patients.

Now I know that you can't rely on the hospital staff to help, that you are far better off having done an ABA Breastfeeding Education Class first, and that the ABA helpline and counsellors are a fantastic source of information and support. I really wish I'd joined when I was first pg!!

[Miss E]

Just wanted to pop in and commend you on starting this thread! I also had a very similar experience, I didn't know how often to feed and was told 'until your milk comes in it's just about getting to know each other so don't worry too much'. As a result of that advice I didn't feed DS for 7 hours (nobody told me how often I should be feeding) on day 2. He ended up with jaundice and on formula. I remember feeling like such a fool, how could I think that he didn't need to be fed. Anyway, just wanted to say that I was just as embarrassed, only difference is I didn't have the courage to start a thread like this. So good on you honey, hopefully you will be able to help a lot of other ladies avoid the same situation.

[~Kaz~]

Ali. It's really not good enough is it? I don't think you should feel bad at all. You did well to function after being awake that long!

I had a similar experience - although our first feed happened within an hour or so of Js birth, later that night the mws were telling me I didn't need to feed him (I did insist and needed their help as I was flat on my back and unable to lift him) and the next day they were telling me it was my fault he was unsettled because my milk hadn't come in and "we'll take him for a while so you can rest - you don't have any milk for him". To my eternal shame I let them take him for a couple of hours. I wasn't thinking straight either after a difficult birth and heavy PPH. When they brought him back and I asked if he'd slept, they said he'd been awake and screaming/crying the whole time. I was mortified and kept him with me after that and fed him whenever he woke up which was often. The advice for me to not feed him as often could have been devastating, because of my blood loss, I actually needed all the help I could get to ensure my milk came in. I didn't even see a LC at all and only had a handful of feeds observed. They told me he had "textbook attachment" but he was pulling back regularly on my nipple (frustrated at slow let downs I think) and he managed to do a lot of damage that way. I was annoyed too. I'd done a lot of reading but you don't know what you don't know.

I have a mate who has a one week old girl - she ended up cracking it at her mw's because of all the conflicting advice she got every single shift. It's so common.

Anyway, that's a bit of a ramble, but I wanted to put my 2 cents worth in to say you're definitely not alone. Put in a complaint if it will make you feel better darl. If enough women complain, they will have to start training their staff more.

[Rosie's Mum]

I am so sorry you had that experience! It would have been so easy to end up not breastfeeding after that. You should be very proud that you pushed through.

I had a weird experience, I fed for the first 2 days and then my milk didn't "come in" and they said my baby was hungry and gave her some formula and then before I was discharged I had to go and learn how to make formula. I didn't really take it in because I had an emergency c section and I didn't know which way was up. But I remember feeling devastated that my baby would be formula fed.

Then that afternoon my milk came in and I could have fed an army for a year, my baby never had any problems attaching etc and in hindsight I think, "I can't be the first person whose milk took awhile to come in, why dicount breastfeeding so quickly?"

I should have joined this website BEFORE I had my baby!