Babies & boobies - Huia's breastfeeding story

Just recently I met a woman about to have her first baby. We got chatting and I asked her if she was planning to breastfeed, “Of course!” she exclaimed, as though there isn’t any viable alternative. I remember being that woman. Our baby is now four and a half months and has only ever been fed breastmilk but it's been one hell of a roller coaster ride! Here is our story....

The decision to breastfeed was an easy one. All the research indicates that breast milk is by far the best thing for baby, designed especially for him and modified constantly to meet his needs. I needed no convincing.  

Wanting to be as prepared as possible we enrolled in Mama-licious' breastfeeding classes. We took notes, actively engaged in class, discussed what we’d learnt afterwards. We also attended antenatal classes, of which one whole evening was dedicated to breastfeeding. I read books, talked to women about feeding - I was prepared to feed our baby and I knew what to do. Yet all the preparation seemed somewhat pointless once he arrived. 

Soon after our little boy was born we attempted the first feed to extract the most divine of all breast milk, the colostrum. He wouldn’t latch. Or couldn’t. He didn’t know what he was doing. And, somewhat surprisingly, nor did I. Despite the reading, the classes, the research, when faced with our own reality things didn’t all fall into place. I will always remember the midwife hand expressing my breast to extract the precious few mls of colostrum with a needle-less syringe: “3 mls - that’s fantastic!” she’d exclaim. 

The next weeks of feeding every 3 hours during the day and every 4 hours at night (from the start of the first feed to the start of the next) with feeding taking at least an hour and attempting to latch him - sometimes successfully (and if not, feeding him expressed milk extracted with the aid of breast pump) - was exhausting. Thank goodness for our midwife Annie, Ann at the Plunket family centre, and a midwife friend - with their support, knowledge and encouragement, baby and I were learning the art of feeding. Not being able to latch baby and feed him “properly” was great self-flagellation fodder. But we did learn to latch and we survived that learning curve.

Unfortunately the next hurdle was just around the corner. In all my focusing on trying to latch baby I hadn’t been focusing on my own comfort... so while baby was learning to latch he wasn’t doing so in a way that was pain free. However, people say to expect “discomfort” so how was I to know that my discomfort was the beginning of a rather huge crack in my nipple? 

The pain of a nipple crack is extreme. My toes would curl as I put baby to my breast. I began to fear feeding time. So it was back to see Ann at the Family Centre to help with my technique and now I needed to take Panadol in advance of feeds (fearing feeding was bound to affect not just my body’s ability to let-down the milk but also, perhaps more importantly, the bonding with my baby). I was prescribed antibacterial gel for my cracked nipple at the risk I would get an infection in the gaping fissure which bled as he fed. 

The only way to fix the crack and keep feeding was to get the latch perfect every time. It was suggested that perhaps I could give that breast a break and express off it and feed baby the expressed milk but I didn’t want to - I just wanted to feed my baby “naturally”. After about ten days the crack healed, yay! I think nipple shells really helped on that front and the nipple shields probably did too, although I found them very hard to use as they seemed so slippery.

Our next hurdle was weight or rather the lack of it. Regular weigh-ins with Plunket to ensure his growth saw him, worryingly, at the bottom of the chart. I think perhaps it was during this hurdle that I came closest to stopping breastfeeding. Mainly out of worry and fear that my milk was not good enough for him, that my milk couldn’t sustain him in the way that he needed to grow big and strong. Feeding my baby was feeling like too much responsibility - what if my milk, all he consumed, wasn’t the perfect potion? If my milk wasn’t good enough, perhaps I wasn’t good enough to be his mother? It was at this stage that breastfeeding became a bit of a head fuck - those bloody charts! Our man is growing. He isn’t a big boy but he’s our long man.

Then came the thrush. I never knew you could get thrush in your nipples! It was in my nipples and his mouth according to the private lactation consultant whom we deployed to assist in baby’s inability to stay latched. He’d latch, suck, and pull off screaming. This cycle would continue until we were both sufficiently traumatised and realised that something wasn’t right. 

The lactation consultant was great - well worth the $75 per hour, but... why is such breastfeeding support not publicly available? With all the research clearly indicating that the “health outcomes” for breastfed babies are so much better, why is there not a gaggle of lactation consultants on magic carpets ready to come to your aid? Better funding is needed to support women in feeding their babies. It seems completely wrong to me that, in order to get the support that I needed, we were compelled to turn to a private consultant. 

The thrush in my nipples is now under-control after 9 delightful days of having to put gel in the dear boy's mouth after every feed (kind of like trying to medicate a cat) and, after vinegar rinsing my nipples, gel on those bad boys too.

Breastfeeding has been bloody hard and I can completely understand why women don’t persevere. I want all women to feel supported in feeding their babies whether that be with breastmilk or formula. Happy mama = happy baby. 

I’ve thought a lot about why breastfeeding is so hard and what could be done to make it easier. I think it all comes down to the way that society is now structured and it's lack of exposure to breastfeeding. We don’t see women feeding and when we do it's seen as rude or impolite to really watch and see what’s going on. Breasts are seen primarily as sexual objects not as feeding vessels and this is were I think a big part of the problem is. We need to see breasts as amazing milk creators and I love that my body can make milk for my baby - I love that my breasts are fulfilling their natural purpose. 

We need to watch women feed, we need to talk about feeding problems, we need to feed our babies around women who have feed theirs not so long ago, because our mothers fed us 20+ years ago and can’t be expected to remember! But the most important thing we must do is really share experiences and discuss breastfeeding. I am so grateful to all the wonderful women who have supported me.

PS. Having our darling boy hasn’t all been hard. He is beautiful and my heart melts in a way I could never have imagined. I would do anything for one of his twinkly smiles and my heart has grown tenfold in love. Our breastfeeding experience has been hard but having a him in our lives has been a delight.