Did you Breast Feed? Why or why not? Just generally curious... I DON'T WANT TO START AN ARGUMENT!

[Ange22]

Hi everyone,

long winded... sorry in advance! Stop reading now if you don't have time! lol. And hopefully I am able to properly explain why I'm asking!

I have been thinking about this for a while and so I just wanted to ask. I am not judging AT ALL and I do know that many women genuinely are unable to BF (and some may just not want too). My Nan for instance had cysts removed from her breasts at a young age and was never able to BF. My good friend had little to no milk supply, I actually sat there with her at the hospital for 1.5 hours while they had her on an electiric breast pump and she got about 19 mls! Anyway the reason I'm asking is:

Myself and 9 friends had our babies in our local private hospital in the last 4 years. All of us but one (the one I mentioned above who had issues with milk supply) were all able to BF ans top when we wanted (not due to pain etc). This was not through no difficulty! Most of us had horribly cracked nipples and numerous help from the lacation consultants whilst in hospital. I myself, had one nipple so badly cracked that when I expressed some milk more blood the milk was spurting out (sorry for the TMI) and I also went back to visit the Lacation Consultant, 3 times after I was discharged on her advice as I was still having a little difficulty. For the first month my nipples hurt so much that I would sometimes cry at the pain in trying to get DS to attach properly and if it hadn't been for the patience and help of my hospital and lacation consultant I know I would of stopped after the first week or so (I went on to BF for 10 months). My friends feel the exact same way.

On the other hand, I have 6 friends who had their babies at the local public hospital and NOT ONE was able to BF. They ALL gave the reason that they had no milk supply. Now, I don't know if they just told us that because they had trouble and didn't want to feel judged. But I thought it was odd every single one of them had no milk supply.

I'm not sure if this is the same in all Public Hospitals but ours is always short on beds and so unless there is great health concerns, mum and bub are discharged after one or possibly two nights. In our local private hospital you are welcome to stay as long as you want and are very much encouraged to stay at least 5 nights. For myself and most of my friends our BF troubles didn't start until our milk came in on day 3 - 4 so it was very handy to still be in hospital to get help or if you left early you were very miuch encouraged to return to visit the lacation consultant for hours on end if you needed.

My Public Hospital friends felt that they were offered little to no encouragement to BF if they had trouble and often the midwives were sooooo understaffed that it was very very very rarely that someone sat with them to help them learn this very hard task. And when they were discharged they were not offered to return if they had difficulties etc.

So.... my question is and please be honest, did you BF and if you didn't why not? Did you feel it would of been different should you of had more help? I am actually wanting to give some feedback to our local Birth support group as it seems to be a growing issue in our community.

As I said, I am not trying to start a fight, I know some women just might not want to BF or genuinely can't. I just wanted to get some feedback. I know this is a very passionate topic.

Thanks

[bellybelly]

ok, there is going to be a fight!

But i will answer anyway!
I breastfed DS until he was 14 months. I planned to stop at 12 months, but he fell ill and was in hospital. The doctors recommended me to continue for a little longer.

I breastfed DD until she was 5 weeks old. During my pregnancy i fully intended to breastfeed until she was 12 months. However i had bad PND and decided it was better to stop, and switch to formula.

[my_little_blessings]

I did BF bub till he was 9 1/2 months then for some reason he didn't want it. I did want to BF him till he was 1. My local hospital was very supportive and help me in every way cause i ask a million questions.
I will be BF the next baby too.

[Lalas2Dudes]

i breastfed for 6 days, and i gave birth in a private hospital. I had a variety of issues that culminated into making breastfeeding very difficult - a traumatic birth, 4th degree tear, being hooked up to an IV for antibiotics for 3 days making it hard to move around, DS was slightly jaundiced and would suck 3 times and fall asleep, meaning i had to try all sorts of positions which isn't easy when you have been split from one end to the other, i was put on motilium to increase my supply, i still could only get 10ml from one breast and 5ml from the other and to top it all off i was developing PND because i felt like a failure.

so on the day i came home from hospital i decided my mental health was more important than breastmilk, i wasn't bonding with DS by trying to breastfeed i was just resenting him. it took me 2 weeks to stop crying every time i gave him a bottle of formula but i got over it in the end.

DS has not had any health issues (been sick once so far in 21 months which is a pretty good track record if you ask me) and has always been very happy and content being fed on formula so now i don't regret my decision to stop breastfeeding like i did in the early days. i am glad that he did get those first few days of colostrum.

i am going to try breastfeeding again this time but if it doesn't work out i am not going to get myself worked up about it because there are more important things in life IMO.

i can see how people who haven't had a difficult time with birth and breastfeeding etc can say that i didn't try hard enough, but try going thru what i went thru and you will see it differently.

[*Frankie*]

I will go ....

I had both my kids in a public hospital 3 years apart !!

With Luke i was shown how to breatfeed by a young midwife who had no children of her own ...seh was FANTASTIC ..she helped me more then anything ..I stayed 3 nights cause I had only just gotten the hang of feeding the night before I went home ..so they encouraged me to stay another night so I was a pro when I got home ...eh was fantastic ...a beautiful feeding experience and was super keen to duplicate it when I had my daughter !!

her birth was magical and she was out quick as a flash (had to be induced with both ) the only reason I stayed the night was cause I had a hemmorage and had to have a cathater and drip and all that crap ...she fed as soon as she was born where as Luke took a few days to get the hang of it ...thought I knew it all and went home 16 hours later with a baby who was not attaching properly ...I had all the help I could think of from my hospital ...I took her back to the clinic there at any tick of the clock to help with feeding ..they were wonderful ...all I had to do was ring and they told me to come straight down ..the maternity ward rang me every mornign for a week to check how I was going and give me little tips which were invaluable (stupid stuff like putting a blanket in the dryer while you feed and then when you put the baby down in the cot wrap the warm blanket over them .....calmed both mine down with in seconds )I had a hospital lactation consultant come to my house and help me feed and she helped me heaps !!

I dont know if it has anything to do with public v private in regard to breastfeeding ..I think it depends souly on the hospital itself ..I have heard heaps of bad stories from private hostipals and I have also heard bad stories from public hospitals (especially our local ...not the one my children were born in ...but the local public hospital is a death trap !! )

your experience can also be altered dramatically with just the midwife you have ...if you have a bad one in a good hospital then the whole experience is blown out the window ...for both of mine I was lucky to snag a fantastic midwife and I also had them in a hospital with a fantastic reputation !!

hoep that helped !!

[*mummi*]

DS1- would not attach, no matter how much we tried so I expressed full time for 6weeks and then my milk dried up. DS was feeding every 3 hours and it took 1 hour to get enough for him, so every 2 hours I was sitting on the couch for an hour expressing- unable to do anything else. It was pretty stressful and I copped a bit of flack from exDP for putting DS on formula. Had him in public hospital and they were pretty good with b/feeding support.

DS2- I put straight on formula, after what I did with DS1 I didn't feel I had it in me to deal with it again especially since I had DS1 to look after aswell.

[bellybelly]

sorry, i forgot to add, i had both mine in a public/private hospital. Everyone received the same care, just public you didn't choose your doctor and private you did!

[vkw]

with my 1st baby ( public hospital), I had the attitude that I would try to bf, but if it did not work out I would just as happily use formula.Probably not the best attitude but I had just seen my sil literally wince and say ouch or groan every time she fed her baby. My baby would not attach properly and after 3 agonising days of feeding a baby when both of my nipples were only just hanging on by a thread of skin, a lovely midwife told me to put them away as she had not seen nipples that bad for a long time.she fetched a bottle of formula and my whingy hungry baby( who was losing weight) was replaced by a happy healthy satisfied baby. 2nd time around the bad experinces & memories were still very fresh in my mind and the hospital ( private) were suppotive of my decision to bottle feed.Third time,I had not decided but the midwife thought it might be harder for me to 'learn' to bf with 2 other babies who neeed my attention.They were only 2 and a half, and 13 months when had the 3rd.After due consideration I agreed with the midwife and with no regret put my baby on formula.

[lemmon4]

I have 4 children all breastfed up to 6 weeks old only simply because I cannot do it!! First child- I felt pressured and unsure how to feed, then he bit a chunk out of me and I tensed up every feed time so onto the bottle.

Second Child- Went well for 2 weeks, then sore and cracked nipples,tried nipple shields,had so much milk my girl nearly drowned lol.She then seemed to be confused and woulld'nt latch anymore. After 2 more days of screaming, hungry baby I put her on bottle.

Third Child- Same as second child but at 6 weeks old ,screaming 24 hours a day and no end in sight, ended up in hospital diognosed with silent refulx, so onto bottle with speacial reflux formula.

Fourth Child- I was desperate to feed for longer,had same problems again, midwife said my nipples are too big for baby's mouth lol. Used breast pump for 3 months but I could'nt keep up with babys demand, felt like a cow on a milking machine!!! So onto the bottle she went.

Ido feel I failed simply because of the pressure from midwives and docs but at the end of the day my babies fed and slept well on the bottle. And I got my sanity back!!! Do what feels right for you and your baby. Congrats on the mums who successfully BF, wish I could have!

[^Mumto2Ts^]

i bf ds til he was 6 months and dd til 5 months. i am one of the lucky ones who found bf VERY easy. a few cracked nipples but after a week all was AOK.

i stopped for a couple of reasons

1 - i went back to work and whilst i was expressing for ds i found it a pain in the arse and my supply dwindled anyway cos i wasnt expressing at the right times to keep it all up

2 - i dont really like bf. i didnt like having the kids 'on' me all the time.

3 - with dd she self weaned. would not drink from me or from an expressed bottle. if i had pursued i could probably have won her over (who knows) but i didnt really want to try. she was happy with the bottle and i was pretty relieved not to have to bf anymore.

i felt 'free' when i stopped and i suppose the only reason i did bf in the first place was because i could easily, and it felt like the right thing to do.

eta that ds was public and dd was private. i dont think where you give birth has any bearing on whether you bf or not tbh. both hospitals were very blaze about the whole bf thing, it was me who made the decision that i would, not them.

[Rumina]

I breastfed dd1 till she self weaned at 18months and my dd2 self weaned at 3yrs7mths.
I had lots and lots of breastfeeding difficuties, too many to count. I also had lots of support. I did not fall within the 1% of Australian women who can not physically breastfeed. Breastfeeding was not a choice for me as I believed it was my baby's right to recieve breastmilk - my baby and I needed to work it out. This process took nearly 8 weeks with my dd1.
The key to successful breastfeeding is *support-support-support* and recieving the correct information from professionals who know about breastfeeding. Most midwives, health nurses, GPs and paediatricans have very little breastfeeding education (a study was done a few years back in Qld and showed that GPs had 30mins of breastfeeding education in their whole degree!!!) and often provide mothers with incorrect information about breastfeeding and are actually given information that leads to further difficulties.
In Australia we do not have a breastfeeding culture, how many women have you seen this week breastfeed? How many toddlers have you seen breastfeed to the recommended 2 years and beyond? How can we learn what is normal from our mothers, sisters, girlfriends and women in our community if we don't talk about it and watch each other successfully breastfeed.
We have a lot of work to do!!!

[LA78]

I breastfed because:

• I'm a tightarse and formula is expensive!
  
• I'm disorganised and can pretty much guarantee we'd be caught out with a hungry baby and no bottles/formula available.
  
• I hate washing bottles - even for expressed milk.
  
• I make so much milk that I could draw pictures on the wall of the shower if the water's too warm.
  
• DH has a family riddled with digestive diseases. No scientific reasons for my feelings, but my instincts tell me that formula would lead to dramas down the track for my kids. (Formula feeders please note this is purely a personal irrational emotion I have and in no way reflects upon the decisions of any other parent anywhere in the world!!!)

Both my kids were born in private hospitals. I couldn't tell you what would happen in a public hospital. I go private because of yet another irrational fear - this time sharing a bathroom at a time that involves a lot of blood loss!

[Zachsmum]

Ok, so before DS was born I was pro breastfeeding. I joined ABA, went to their seminar, read books, watched videos, bought a number of special breastfeeding t-shirts, bought a glider. I did not even think about formula or formula preparation, bottles, sterilisers, pumps etc.

Then DS was born and had to be in NICU for 5 days (he had a hole in his lung). He was given nutrients intraveniously for the first 2 days.

In the meantime I expressed every 3 hours to try to keep up with the NICU requirements before they would give him formula. I was so desperate for them not to give him formula so I expressed and expressed and expressed. I was totally exhausted with next to no sleep. I had midwives helping me express and in the end I was put on a breast pump. On midwife in passing told me I would end up needing cabbage leaves if I kept on expressing at that rate.

So enough he was given my colustrum through a tube (he wasn't allowed to have anything via the mouth at that stage)

They strongly suggested using a dummy whilst in NICU (i wasn't going to give him dummies but I couldn't hold him or comfort him so I gave it to him because it gave him some comfort).

Then when it was time to breast feed, a NICU nurse tried to help me to put him to my breast. Keep in mind, her skills are in treating NICU babies not in breastfeeding - so she could do only so much to help me.

It was so awkward trying to work it out with tubes and wires hanging off him.

They paged a lactation consultant several times but she never came - too busy.

I finally got her to see me on my last day. She said he was attached properly but he wasn't. It was excriating! She plonked me in front of a video (which I had already seen) but it didn't help.

I believe he was nipple feeding rather than breastfeeding. He wouldn't open his mouth wide enough (probably because of the dummy usage).

Other midwives tried to help but it was still excrutiating.

Got home and kept it up of about 3 weeks.

I had huge amounts of milk.

Still excrutiating, nipples looked like they were about to fall off! - bleeding etc.

Tried breast pumps. But I think I was sooo exhausted and stressed from breastfeeding (I wasn't eating well - loss of appetite), no sleep (because he constantly screamed and cried) that my milk supply seemed to have dramatically drop - I dreaded each feed. He also had a urinary tract infection which I had to get special invasive tests done.

That period was a nightmare. Community nurses came but they weren't able to help us.

I ended up with bad PND.

After 3 weeks, I formula fed him.

I had the worst guilt and feelings of failure.

PND lasted about a year.

If I have another baby, I will try to breast feed again, but I will not go down that same road again and will switch to formula if I have no success.

[leisah]

I had DD at a local public hospital and successfully bf her until she self-weaned at 19 months.

I was allowed to stay at my hospital until DD was 5 days old (she was born in the am so it was a full 5 days). They did ask me if I wanted to leave at day 3 but I said no, I wasn't going anywhere until my milk had come in and i was comfortable feeding. Like Frankie, I found the best midwife at the hospital was one who did not yet have kids (fortunately she was in charge of my room for 3 out of the 5 days I was there ) because she let me try things on my own and just offered help and support rather than ramming DD on and walking out without explaining/helping me like the other midwives I had.

Once I was discharged there was a walk in clinic run by CHN available to me for the first month (it was located less than 5 min away from my house). When I started to have problems with attachment, cracked nipples etc I was able to just show up there at any time they were open and they would sit down and help me with any problems I had. Without their support and encouragement I probably would have stopped at about 2 weeks even though my issues were only on one side.

I was also very fortunate that I had a supportive husband and family who were willing to encourage me in my bf attempt, even my mil (who ff both her kids) was really supportive.

I don't think that I'm "anti-formula" even though I'd probably be considered to be "pro-breastfeeding". I was, and still am willing to use formula if I feel it becomes necessary (for either my child's or my wellbeing) BUT I want to know that I tried everything possible to bf my children. To me, if I can say that I tried my hardest to BF and it just didn't work out long term I think/hope it will help with any 'mummy guilt' if I can't feed Kermit for as long as I fed DD.

Leisa

[2 little blondies]

I had both my girls in a public hospital in Brisbane and both by c/s so I was in hospital for over a week with both of them. I'm not sure if that makes any difference to your question but as I was in hospital for a lengthy time, I had many opportunities to get help with bf.

DD1 was a little prem and I expressed bm for her until she was strong enough to feed however the little bugger loved the bottle over the boob so she was agonizingly switched to formula at 9 weeks.

DD2 was bf until 3 months and again agonizingly switched to formula as she wasnt gaining weight and still hadnt gotten back up to her birth weight at 3 months. Once on formula she gained weight immediately.

Personally I found the midwives and lactation consultants at the public hospital to be amazingly helpful, especially with dd2 as I'd felt I'd missed out on something with dd1. I was given so much encouragement and support by both.

For me at least, my Public Hospital experience was fantastic and I never felt as though I was being pushed out of a bed or rushed to leave and the midwives & lactation consultants were very helpful.