My Breastfeeding Career

Without knowing the details and just looking at the overview, it would seem that I am very good at breastfeeding. I breastfed my first child, Elena, until she gave up at 19 months and happily feeding Emily who is now nearly 5 months old.

But when it comes to the details, the story reads rather differently.

I had a “managed”, forceps birth with Elena and the fact that she was born full of drugs gave us both a bad start. She just wanted to sleep for the first few days and there was no getting her on the breast at all. Midwives suggested we strip her naked once and hour and bath her to wake her up and then attempt to get her to feed. It didn’t work. She just fell asleep the second her lip touched my nipple. They threatened heel prick tests to check for low blood sugar. Luckily it didn’t come to that because the community midwives were pretty pro-breast.

On about day 3 my milk came in and Elena woke up from her stupor. She wanted to feed but between us we couldn’t get it right. My nipples were desperately sore and bleeding. I was dreading every feed and weeping with pain each time.

A few days of this and a midwife suggested I use some breast shields. I sent my mother to buy some at the chemist’s and used them for every feed from then on. Bliss! No more pain. Life was good.

Elena seemed to be feeding well. She was on the breast day and night and her nappies were drenched. All seemed well until she was weighed and had hardly put on anything since birth. The Health Visitor was not impressed and suggested I give her a bottle. I took her to an osteopath who suggested I give her a bottle. I went to an LLL breastfeeding counsellor. She suggested that it might be the breastshields not allowing the breast to be stimulated properly and I should wean myself off them.

So at a month old, we had to learn how to breastfeed all over again. Once we got it sussed it was much easier than having to sterilise the breastshields all the time. And a lot more discreet when we were not at home. My nipples were still sore, but not to the point that I’d weep. Several breastfeeding counsellors assessed my technique and could find nothing wrong. It would get better eventually. And it did.

So all seemed well… for about a week. Then I started feeling ill. I kept thinking I’d got ‘flu. A couple of good days then a couple of bad ones. I was desperately tired and usually in bed at 7pm.

A breastfeeding counsellor suggested mastitis and it made sense. I went to the GP and got antibiotics. Fine for a few days then it would start again. Tried homeopathy and Echinacea to no avail. My acupuncturist couldn’t give me an appointment for a few weeks and I felt I couldn’t survive that long. Back to the GP for more antibiotics.

After a while I began to suspect I had an abscess in my left breast. I asked one of the bfcs and she showed me a photo from her book of breastfeeding horrors of what must have been a burst abscess and told me that is what mine would look like if it really was an abscess which was unlikely.
It took several visits to the GP to get taken seriously. Then tried a different GP at the same practice who was shocked (it felt about the size of a hen’s egg by this point) and referred me to hospital that afternoon for them to try and draw fluid off. This was the worst day of it all. I had an unpleasant junior doctor doing it without aid of ultrasound or anaesthetic and she was just stabbing around in the dark with a huge needle for the best part of an hour. Then her advice (flippantly given when she was finished stabbing) was not to feed from that breast for a week.

This was totally devastating. It was already after 6pm by this point and I had been there all afternoon. I’m very anti the idea of formula anyway and, as a vegan, even more anti the idea of cow's milk formula. I pushed the pram home from the hospital in tears, just slumped over it. If I hadn't had the pram to keep me up I don't think I would have got home. (The background to this is that I had exploratory surgery on my right breast years ago when I had some bleeding from the nipple, and it never produced as much as the left one so I was feeding about 2/3rds out of my left one - i.e. the one I wasn't supposed to use for a week). Spent the whole evening on the ‘phone. I had one tiny pack of frozen expressed milk in the freezer that had taken me a few days to produce. Tried to speak to bfcs but it was August and all bar one were away on holiday. The one who was available said she didn't know enough about it to contradict doctor's advice. Also ‘phoned loads of chemists and supermarkets to see if they sold the Farley's vegan formula. No one did except Boots but they were closing in 5 minutes.

Tried the delivery suite to see if any midwives had any advice but they didn't and also didn't keep any formulas there except cow ones. Phoned local vegans but no one knew as they had all breastfed without a problem. In the end had to go out and buy a little ready made carton of cow’s formula milk and we gave 3oz of that to Elena in the night. Luckily she didn't ask for any more than that and what was in my right breast. Friends and family ‘phoned me to see how I was doing and I just wept and felt as if I was losing my mind because I couldn't feed my baby.

In the morning we went to Boots and got the vegan formula. I also managed to get through to the hospital who said it would be alright to express from my bad breast. I did and it was full of blood but I found that if it sat in the fridge a few hours the blood would sink and the milk float so it was quite easy to pour off into a different bottle and leave the blood and pus behind. Told HV this as she was due a visit the next day and she was horrified and told me formula was better for Elena. I ignored her – it had become almost second nature!

Anyway, the top and bottom of it was that I didn't last a week. I lasted about 36 hours and put her back on my breast again. Just had to make sure she kept away from the scabby bits with her hands. In the meantime I hardly gave any formula (two small bottles as I recall). I had some donations of expressed milk that some very generous friends had "clogging up their freezers" (lucky people!) and this eked it all out.

This was the low point of it all. All the subsequent drainage of the abscesses (guided by ultrasound and with anaesthetic) was nothing compared to that awful day. And other doctors all said that I should keep on feeding even immediately after drainage.

The abscess eventually went away and there was a clear week before I suspected another one in my right breast this time. I took more mountains of antibiotics and Elena failed to put on weight – more pressure again to ignore to put her on the bottle. I went each week to the local hospital and had the abscess drained. But nothing was making it better so I accepted their offer of surgery.

This happened at the end of October. Elena had developed a strong preference for the left breast and was hardly taking anything from the right. A few days before the surgery was due the abscess burst during the night and it was a huge pussy mess. I decided I could no longer give Elena that breast.

I had the surgery and stayed overnight in hospital and Elena drank bottles full of other women’s milk. After that I was pretty ill for a few weeks but still feeding Elena well out of just my left breast. Finally, when I was off the antibiotics, she started piling on weight and no one mentioned the bottle again – at least for a little while!

We carried on single-boobed until Elena eventually cut down from several feeds a day to just one and then to one every few days until she just stopped altogether. Her last feed was Christmas Eve 2001. A few days after this I found out I was pregnant again and although I was sad not to feed Elena I felt relieved that both of my breasts would be on equal footing when the next baby was born.

I worried throughout the pregnancy that the same horror story would unfold again and swore that if it did then this would be my last baby.

Emily was born drug free at home and although I still had sore nipples for a few weeks, she generally took to breastfeeding much more easily than Elena. After a week I could feel blockages developing and couldn’t tell whether what I was feeling was new-mum tiredness or mastitis all over again so went to my acupuncturist who gave me (excruciating) Tui Na massage on my breasts and got those lumps moving. I went weekly until 3 months which was my psychological cut off point. Having passed that, I think I’m going to be OK this time.

And roll on baby No 3!! (who arrived June 2005)

* Gillians childbirth accounts
* Differences between breatfeeding between non / hysterectomised people

(Home page www.a-little-wish.org.uk)
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