Does birth play a roll in bf?

Marydean, I think this is where it ties into best practice and best knowledge being used to compensate for births that override natural systems - a CS needn't be a BFing death knell if the risks are mitigated and as much can be done to jump-start the oxytocin production process.
Yes, it's confronting to realise that medical intervention carries such high risk of breastfeeding non-establishment. Once confronted, though, and you deal with the reality in front of you, you can navigate through the information better and play hard with the docs for what you need, if they're not already on it.
The type of birth you have, especially in our kind of modernised society, is going to carry inherent risks - it's not the knife, it's not the drugs in themselves (though they are heavily implicated on their own), it's the people who make it happen and who provide the care, or lack thereof. The 'system' that provides the medical interventions so often has no plan for breastfeeding establishment and retention, because they're so parochial about their turf - their turf is the birth and the first 6 weeks. After that they assume a professional from another medical fraternity will take over, I guess, like a paed (and we all know that they are all lactation experts...not!!).
It's no coincidence that 'continuity of care' models of maternity care are linked to better breastfeeding outcomes, long-term.
The net of accountability is long and wide, and the current Federal Health Minister isn't doing much to bring the net in - in fact, she's happy for the sharks to pick their bits while the rest of us flounder (the sharks being those who happily bill Medicare for every intervention they can offer and use - cynical, but true).
No matter how we birth, we all want the best for our kids and the rest of their lives - that's our agenda. Now, if only the hospitals could align their agendas accordingly.
It's so heartening to read of people's experiences with more progressive caregivers!

Emergency c-section here with DS and it took a while for the milk to come in (day 5 I think) but I still found it very hard to establish feeding, even more so when I got home and didn't have midwives to talk to


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - even though I should be cleaning ;)

I had a very different experience, I had a CS and milk come in on day 1. DS had skin to skin with DH straight away and skin to skin with me within 10/15 minutes. He breast crawled with absolutely no problems and fed with no problems. I still have no idea how to breastfeed, I just bring boob and baby together and it all works somehow. I had early labour for a few days before the CS.


I think the risks can be minimized and I did my best to mimic a vaginal birth as much as possible.

I definitely believe generally birth has a lot to do with BFing. Not always, but often.

Having said that, I had a wonderful, natural birth with DD, only 6 hours, no issues aside from a little meconium. My milk took 6 days to come in. No idea why. My haemoglobin totally tanked after birth, so that may be why. DD also had jaw issues. So I guess for me, the birth didn't play a part in my BFing difficulties, it was everything after.

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Hmm, this is interesting, thanks ladies for the replies so far. My CS friend also mentioned how gunky her bubs chest was for a few days because the 'stuff doesn't get squeezed out' like it would in a vaginal delivery. I had no idea about that either.

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I had the same problem with my son but that was because he only took 5 minutes to decend. The birth canal didn't get to squeeze him.

I think a lot depends on your state of mind too. Myfriend was petrified of labour and breastfeeding and her milk never came in. Not even colostrum

I agree with PP in that there are a lot of factors with establishing bf that we don't even realise until it's too late sometimes. I think drugs can play a role (I have seen the youtube video of the breastcrawl and it was really interesting) I have also read that breastcrawl can be tried at anytime within a few days of birth to help with latching etc...

AFM I've only birthed once, laboured for 17+ hrs and then a c/section. DS had nasal flaring (which is common becuase of the lack of 'squeezing') and was in NICU for 12+ hrs. I wasn't able to hold him and had a shot of pethadine during the night. My lack of knowledge meant that in his first 24 hrs he probably only fed 4 times. He was a sleepy baby but I didn't know it wasn't a good thing. My milk didn't come into until day 5 and we had issues feeding for at least 12 weeks. I persisted and googled lot's to help with attachment and managed to make it through that time and fed DS until he was just over 2.5 yrs. :dunno: each journey is difficult and we had a tin of formula JIC but, for me, I already felt I had failed to bring him into the world properly and really needed to do bf.

i've only had the one birth so far so nothing to compare to but DS was a vaginal birth but after being induced & i did end up with an epidural & assisted delivery. my milk came in on day 4 & we had a bit of a rocky start - but i think that was more to do with only receiving some partial information from the hospital. luckily a m/w who saw me at home, the aba & bb were able to help me keep going. so i'd say that the type of birth can have an impact but the support & information you received afterwards is almost equally as important.

Knowledge of breastfeeding, and where to look for support when things don't go as planned are also really important factors.

I had a vaginal birth, no drugs but a lot of trauma. I was highly motivated to get breastfeeding to work, and had joined the ABA, read up etc and knew that i wanted to give bub the opportunity to do the breast crawl if possible. Fortunately, i had a lovely midwife with me after my bub was born who was happy to let us do our thing. We had lots of skin to skin time and this hour or so did so much to the relationship i have with my daughter (being able to seperate my issues with the birth from my relationship with her) and definitely contributed to avoiding PND.

When i got some dodgy advice from one of the midwife s on day 3 (when i was alone, tired and emotional and it was the middle of the night), the info i had learnt on breastfeeding during pregnancy from the ABA and other sources helped me to know that she was talking ****. This could have been another (negative) turning point if i did not have the info stored in the back of my brain.

This is an interesting topic. I have only had one birth to compare, I had a five hour birth drug free, calm & beautiful birth. We had trouble with BF. DD was gunky too as it was fast (5 hours - 3 in established). My sister had a mirrored birth to me for DD1 no problems BF and an even quicker birth for DD2 both drug free and calm neither with BF issues. Sometimes it just happens I think. I think there is a number of factors not just CS v VB.

There are lots of variables that can affect the establishment of breastfeeding and what happens during birth is one of them, yep.
Personally, I think the high intervention rates for births (not just c/s, but painkillers, inductions, instruments, etc) and the lack of support for mothers are two of the biggest factors in determining success rates.

the labour and delivery went very pearshaped, but we still went on to have a bf-ing r'ship.

i believe the factors that made that possible (in SPITE of how she arrived) were:

= attending a 3 hour ABA Learn how to breastfeed teaching session (in late pregnant, with partners). So my partner heard the info too, and realised how important, HIS support was, to me bf-ing our child. This came out months later, i thought he hadn't been listening, but when i was too zonked out to do much, he ended up remembering what he heard at that session, repeated phrases from it, when i was low and wanted to give up.

= having my own midwife, who visited me daily in hospital (to tutor me on breastfeeding), then came daily at home, then every two days, then every three days, then weekly (all over the first six weeks). Being taught by ONE consistent person, who was around often, was fantastic. I was warned and it came true, the multitude of midwives and nurses in hosp, who all have their own (conflicting) ways to telling you how to do it. (I went thru the Midwifery Group Practice in a public hospital, during my pregnancy.)

= knowing about Private Lactation consultants, the ABA hotline 1800 686 2 686 (which i knew from the ABA session) so i never felt i had nowhere to ask my questions. Knowing i could hop online and ask on belly belly. Knowing i could look up the aba website, la leche, kellymom etc. This made a huge difference to me, i was not well enough to physically attend ABA meetings for many months (let alone drive), so online help was invaluable.

THAT'S what I'm talking about, Gigi ;) Knowing the risks means you can mitigate them :)

i was glad i was prepared, cos things were bad after the arrival, so i wouldn't have had the energy to educate myself, post baby. I assumed everything would go well, but things turned out differently. Plus i knew i had to rely on myself, no MIL or M in the picture. The parenting support worker i had, was so mainstream, i didn't get the kind of help i needed (she thought i was mad for using MCN, not using CIO etc). So in my darkest days, i was having to justify to her, why i was doing, what i was doing, every single visit. It was more about check up than actual support.

Just found this article Is the way we birth causing breastfeeding failure? and remembered this thread.

Thought I'd share :)

I had a calm, drug free, easy beautiful birth with DD, she never did breast crawl in aking to skin and I didn't really get bf established with her... Despite spending a fortune on an LC and unwavering perserveerance for 8 long weeks until I had no supply left. I'm hoping things will b different this time.

I had a vaginal birth with DD, but it became very long due to (I believe) my heavy epidural and this also contributed to a vacuum delivery and general feelings of disconnection from the birthing process. I've found it very hard to find research linking epidurals to longer births and / or PND though my gut tells me there is a real link. Anyway long story short, while my medical interventions were comparatively minimal and it was a spontaneous labour, DD and I had great trouble with breastfeeding for the first few weeks. I think we were both exhausted, dazed and confused from a long birth, DD especially so from vacuum. I felt disconnected and anxious etc.

I had one vaginal and one planned c/s. Both times they fed almost immediately after birth (within the first hour).

No difference at all - and my milk came in sooner after the c/s. I assume my boobs knew what they were doing, as they'd been through it before ;)

I would guess that it plays a role, just as there are many other things that play a role - gestation, willingness to feed, ability to feed, taking steps to ensure supply, getting enough sleep for supply etc. So I would say a contributing factor but not the sole factor and in most cases not the deal breaker. For example I think gestation age and being born before the ability to suck has been developed is much more likely to be the deal breaker than vaginal vs. CS.