Is Breastfeeding Your Newborn a Struggle? Read On.
originally published 2014 at The Guardian online a comment made to Gavin Extence's article Breastfeeding may be natural, but that doesn't mean it's easy
I know I would have found it some way reassuring to read of someone experiencing similar problems with breastfeeding as I was experiencing when I was a new mother.
Before the internet, the only information my husband and I had to hand, in the dark, wakeful hours of the night, was the kind of NHS breastfeeding pamphlets you mention in your article, Gavin Extence - and in the cold light of the day the word ‘formula’ seemed a dirty word.
Six weeks I struggled to breast feed exclusively. My nipples quickly became cracked and dry and then sores appeared and they would bleed. I would curl my toes and wince when my baby latched on, and while ‘feeding’ my baby...well, I would just cry because I wasn’t enjoying the experience like they said I would; in fact, I found it deeply traumatising. Whereas she, poor little mite, would fall asleep on the breast because of the huge effort she was having to make.
Sometimes my husband would help to express milk, to try to give the nipples time to heal over and allow me some time out, but 15 minutes of hard breast pumping to express harvested only a measly few mls. I was simply not producing.
After a traumatic labour, the baby and I needed to rest, but the breast feeding experience, for us both, was overriding. Finally, and at the end of our tether, my husband and I agreed to give our baby formula milk and he bottle fed our daughter while I crept away somewhere and sobbed quietly. She slept for the longest period afterwards, and from then on she was in a settled pattern of sleeping and feeding which bought about many benefits.
I had such high expectation of myself as a new parent, that I felt I was failing my baby because I was not doing things naturally, and I so wanted to. Health workers were policy set, and other high yielding new mums were pooh pooh-ing me because the mechanics had worked, or was working for them.
My baby was not relaxed and would only cat nap night and day because she was hungry all the time. The postnatal depression I suffered was never actually confirmed, nonetheless, for me, it was definitely real, caused by the problems I was experiencing with breastfeeding directly and because of my worried reaction to the stigma and the politics surrounding the alternatives.
If you happen to be a new mum who is not producing enough breast milk for her baby to thrive, I hope this article goes someway to help with the decision to stop stuggling on. It is not doing you or your baby any good. Take up bottle feeding formula if you need to; it's okay to do so.
Debra ♥
I know I would have found it some way reassuring to read of someone experiencing similar problems with breastfeeding as I was experiencing when I was a new mother.
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| Illustration by Debra Hall |
Six weeks I struggled to breast feed exclusively. My nipples quickly became cracked and dry and then sores appeared and they would bleed. I would curl my toes and wince when my baby latched on, and while ‘feeding’ my baby...well, I would just cry because I wasn’t enjoying the experience like they said I would; in fact, I found it deeply traumatising. Whereas she, poor little mite, would fall asleep on the breast because of the huge effort she was having to make.
Sometimes my husband would help to express milk, to try to give the nipples time to heal over and allow me some time out, but 15 minutes of hard breast pumping to express harvested only a measly few mls. I was simply not producing.
After a traumatic labour, the baby and I needed to rest, but the breast feeding experience, for us both, was overriding. Finally, and at the end of our tether, my husband and I agreed to give our baby formula milk and he bottle fed our daughter while I crept away somewhere and sobbed quietly. She slept for the longest period afterwards, and from then on she was in a settled pattern of sleeping and feeding which bought about many benefits.
I had such high expectation of myself as a new parent, that I felt I was failing my baby because I was not doing things naturally, and I so wanted to. Health workers were policy set, and other high yielding new mums were pooh pooh-ing me because the mechanics had worked, or was working for them.
My baby was not relaxed and would only cat nap night and day because she was hungry all the time. The postnatal depression I suffered was never actually confirmed, nonetheless, for me, it was definitely real, caused by the problems I was experiencing with breastfeeding directly and because of my worried reaction to the stigma and the politics surrounding the alternatives.
If you happen to be a new mum who is not producing enough breast milk for her baby to thrive, I hope this article goes someway to help with the decision to stop stuggling on. It is not doing you or your baby any good. Take up bottle feeding formula if you need to; it's okay to do so.
Debra ♥
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