Does birth play a roll in bf?

Talking to two friends today - one had a emergency CS the other a vaginal birth. The friend with the CS birth mentioned it took her bub a couple of days to get a hang of feeding, the other friend said her bub took to feeding moments after birth.

So I was wondering if there was any correlation with the type of delivery and how well a bub takes to feeding?

I believe that there is evidence supporting the experience of your friends, related to hormones, alertness of baby and the higher chance of immediate skin on skin, mother bonding time that comes with a vaginal birth.

Anecdotally, I had the same experience. Vaginal birth, no problems with breastfeeding, CS, 10 weeks of hell before we hit our stride.

they told me in hospy, that because id had an emergency c/s thats why my milk took so long to come in. however others (middys and lc) have said to me its whether you labour or not that makes the difference.
My milk didnt come in till DD was 8 days old, but she had a tongue issue which wasnt picked up till she was 5days old, had i known earlier i could have gotten on the pump and got my milk in faster, well i think i could have anyway, so i guess i think personally i believe its the labouring part that makes the difference not the vb or cs.

Just adding DD was on the boob in recovery, our issue wasnt her going on it was lack of supply and ability to suck

I had a vaginal birth, no complications and had a tough time establishing BF that being said though my dd did BF immediately after birth, things went down hill from there!

There is correlation between drugs that are given to Mum (and therefore bub) during labour and baby's natural ability/willingness to breastfeed. (More drugs- harder for bub)

However, even with a difficult birth most babies are still able to breastfeed.

The ABA has some info on breastfeeding after a c section https://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/bf-...aesarean-birth

I remember seeing a video once that showed babies ability to breast crawl after birth and compared those who had a vaginal birth without drugs, and births with drugs (can't remember if they had c section births or just vaginal births). will post the link if i can find it.

I definitely think there is a correlation. Personally, my first birth was induced, long and traumatic for me, I had gas and pathadine as pain relief, as well as a fairly bad PPH requiring transfusions. After giving birth I was exhausted and was so out of it there was hardly any desire for me to really even cuddle my baby let alone feed her. All I wanted to do was sleep and I gave permission for the nurses to give her a bottle. DD was also very sleepy and too tired to feed when I finally got around to it about 10hrs later. Our BF'ing journey was very tumultous (sp??) and traumatic and she was never fully bf. We combine-fed for 7mths before she weaned when I fell pg with DS1.

When I had my boys, I was so much more 'present'. I had normal, natural onset, drug-free vaginal births with both of them. They both took to the breast straight after birth like they had done it all before and fed for a long time. They were/are both fully bf. DS1 fed until 6wks before his 2nd birthday when I fell pg with DS2. DS2 is still going at 11 1/2mths, with no end in sight so far!

I think alot of it has to do with the drugs I had with DD. We were both just exhausted and the pethadine had me in such a haze and I assume she was too. Plus I was just too sick to do anything, I couldn't even stand or sit up for days after birth, let alone get up to breastfeed a baby. I did try many times, but she had terrible latch, as well as slight jaundice, which made it all the worse. I had horrifically grazed sore bleeding nipples and also ended up with thrush. It was a pretty terrible introduction to bf'ing! I really surprised myself that I persevered and REALLY tried for so long. I tried everything I heard might help, but in the end she gave up on me, lol.

Speaking as someone who has had 2 c/s's, one emergency and one scheduled I would say yes absolutely. I had supply problems both times and te emergency c/s was the worst.


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Dr Sarah Buckley writes a lot about this (among others), and her take on it is (and I'm sorry to reduce it to this!) that it is to do with the interruption to the hormone transfer that labour initiates. The hormone process is gearing up to the establishment of breastfeeding and bonding, priming the body for the super boost of oxytocin that locks in bonding and intoxication with your baby.
That's not to say ALL c-sections will have a troubled breastfeeding establishment, just a very compelling number of them will and that makes it highly likely that breastfeeding won't be a seamless affair with medical intervention.
What it does mean is that, knowing this, it gives mums the heads up as to how much harder they're looking at working on breastfeeding establishment if, for whatever reason, they end up with interventions that hijack the hormone production. There is the increasing practice of skin-to-skin as soon as possible after the baby is lifted out, minimal handling by staff, expert lactation consultants on hand etc. by more and more obs and hospitals. It's still not optimal, it does optimise the chances of the body playing catch-ups with the hormone production.
So many women get jibbed when their care givers are 'informing' them about c-sections, inductions, epidurals etc and don't consider breastfeeding implications important enough to share with their clients. The clients, then, assume that breastfeeding can just start and they are the ones who are highly likely to be on formula within 4 weeks because the whole system that's supposed to be supporting them fails them, yet pats itself on the back for a 'good outcome' - while the mothers lament and wonder what went wrong :(
Birth method and experience has been shown and is continuing to predict breastfeeding establishment and retention - it seems every issue of Essence (ABA's mag) as well as articles in nursing journals contains at least one report supporting this.
It's time to for the medical fraternity to stop kidding themselves and inadvertently cheating women by trotting out the tired "at least you got a healthy baby", because 'health' is more than just AGPAR scores and the time till discharge, or even the first 6 weeks, or even the first 6 months. Many would argue that effects into adulthood mean that the birth was not a 'good outcome'.
Anecdotallly - my MiL had two inductions for my DP and ended up with an emergency c-section. She breastfed for barely 3 months and had problems. She had an elective c-section with BiL and was able to have him within 3 hours (it was 3 days with DP) and to hold him to get things started and she BF him for 6 months. The effects in their attachment (to others close to them) can still be seen. DP was definitely disadvantaged from his forced separation at birth, and many important neural connections were never made with DP - he has a condition related to dyslexia and his empathy skills are almost non-existent, where his brother is someone who 'feels' and he is immediately a very warm person. Back in the bad old 70s women had even less idea about how to optimise bonding and no-one in hospitals bothered themselves with getting mothers and babies together for breastfeeding and bonding :(
Anecdote is not evidence, and there is plenty of evidence, and a growing body of longitudinal study.
Just this year, whilst studying schizophrenia for uni, there was a definite correlation between birth experience/type and the predisposition to schizophrenia. That scared the hell out of me, because NO-ONE talks about this in birthing/obstetric circles, they only seem to talk about it in hindsight in terms of etiology of schizophrenia and some other mental illnesses. To me that is unforgiveable - these findings need to be shared so that compensations for unavoidable (hell, even elective) birth interventions can be implemented as soon as humanly and medically possible.
Already, the body of evidence for the immense benefits of kangaroo care is massive - yet it's only really used in practice for premmies, and only sometimes (if you're lucky enough to be in a hospital that is savvy enough), where it really needs to be a policy for all c-sections and all babies going into NICU/SCN.
I'm getting ahead of myself, here ;)

Well me personally I've had 3 c-sections and very different breastfeeding experienced with all 3 even though all 3 births were fairly similar. My milk did take slightly longer to come in with my emergency than my scheduled but only by 24hrs and I think that was more lack of knowledge about breastfeeding than the birth itself. I suppose I don't have a natural birth to compare too but I don't believe my c-sections affected my ability to breastfeed. My early issues had more to do with oversupply, engorgement, thrush and mastitis. Nothing to do with my birth. My milk only took 4 days to come in with my emergency c-section and 3 days with my scheduled ones.

I've only had the one birth, so don't have much to compare it to, but I had pethadine and a small amount of gas, DD was born vaginally and we had no problems establishing b/f. The only issue I had in the following days was bleeding nipples, so more my issue than hers ;)

SIL had an emergency c/s but it was after she had laboured and she had no problems b/f either.

I've only had one birth too so nothing to compare to, but DS was a VB after I had an epidural (although a weak one) after 22hrs (he was born 3.5hrs later) of labour and we had zero issues with breastfeeding, and still have had zero issues almost 11 months on. I did know of the all the risks involved with an epidural (including bf-ing), but was very lucky I didnt need to call upon the resources I had prepared for if I had any troubles getting bf-ing established.

But then I have a good friend who has had two VB, her 1st was drug-free & 2nd she had gas & peth, and she had huge issues breastfeeding both her kids and both were fully FF within a couple of weeks.

Very interesting thread!

I've had an emergency and not so emergency sections. I laboured for a long time with DD. Milk took 6 days to come in. I had PE and was sick though. Was a rough start but for me it was psychological more than her.
My waters broke with DS but nothing further happened (thank goodness for him) so had another section, milk was there not 48hours later, he was a pro.
Yes the drugs used were different and I think that helped.

This one needs to come out before labour starts...but I don't anticipate it to be any different.

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.

That bit I have found very true.

DS was an emergency c/s and my milk didn't come in until late day 4 and he lost too much weight and we had problems with supply, even though I got him on the breast within 30 minutes of delivery. He was 3 weeks early and didn't have a proper suck which affected things too.
DD was a VBAC, she was on the breast straight away. Milk came in that night no problems with feeding but she didn't gain weight for a couple of months, but my supply was fine.

i had an emergency c-section with Bandl's Ring complications (after 37 hours of labour), it was a very traumatic delivery. (Bandl's Ring is very uncommon, i never read of it happening to other bb-ers). i would have been very happy with a very boring labour.

Her first breastfeed was 2.5hrs after she was yanked out of me (they tried forceps, vacuum thing, then broke the suction by a nubmer of people punching my uterine muscles, she was dragged out by one foot). APGAR of 2.

THe nurse in Recovery, on my request, took me to the Nursery, and the midwives there helped me attach her for her first very short feed. i then basically kidnapped her, to come back with me, to the Post Labour ward. i wanted her with me, was upset her cord was immed cut, the vermix was washed off her, no breast crawl, rushed off to NICU, i hardly got to see her.

We had four months of bf-ing not going very well, then suddenly, it all clicked. So she was feeding all that time, but with pain for me. The internal damage from the Bandl's Ring complications, stomach muscles were messed up for a long time, so i'm sure that contributed alot to the pain i felt bf-ing. i was so elated when it no longer hurt to breastfeed. After her traumatic entry, it was so important to me, that i bf her, to me, it felt like a way i could make it up to her. sounds silly i know. i blame hormones. And zero counselling after what had happened to us. Just pats on the head "doesn't matter, you have a beautiful baby, that's all that matters".

Ausgirl, I had one VB and one CS and ironically the breastfeeding was easier and I was better supported getting it going after the CS than the VB. However, in my case the CS was by far the gentler and more empowered birth experience and my VB birth involved bags of drugs and a distressed baby with low apgars. Through both experiences I went in well informed with ABA information and knew the importance of skin to skin contact and face to face gazing and feeding on demand, and I knew to ask for help with expressing and attachment. I think the problem comes down less to the type of birth and more to the way the hospital/MACH system fails to provide the type of compassionate education and ongoing support that women really need to persevere through the difficulties until the BFing relationship is properly established.

I think one of the positives for my CS friend was that she stayed in hospital for a few more days because of it and therefore did get a bit more support from the staff to establish feeding. Bubs is feeding like a trouper now! And has the milk pimples to prove it!

Gigi, your birth sounded very traumatic - how scary for you!