Girls, I am having such anxiety about breastfeeding. It consumes me I'm losing sleep over it. I want to desperately. I wanted to with my boys, but it never happened and I was devastated. Is there anyway to absolutely guarantee that I can breastfeed after a csection?
2 major things
1 - I would say that your best chances are if you're open to help, friends have asked me for help before but when i or others try and help them they don't seem to actually want to listen. OOORRR when people finally say they had problems breastfeeding they say it when they're already on formula and have already decided not to BF, so many don't ask while actually trying to BF.
2 - Don't give up, my friend who had problems breastfeeding (explained below) was told by her lactation consultant that it takes a good 6 weeks to get a full hold and handle on breastfeeding, so she aimed for that 6 and refused to give up prior. She ended up breastfeeding for 18 months.
What was the issue with your first pregnancies, did the milk just not come in because you had a c-section... i know that can happen but i thought it was more with really traumatic births and major emergency c-sections. I'm not very well educated with c-sections though so i could be wrong.
I do know of a few women who said their milk never came in and honestly it took my friend 6 days for hers to come in. Mine took 4 days and this was after 2 hourly feeds for 2 days then on the 3rd day she fed for i kid you not 5 straight hours!!! i was exhausted, tired and in so much pain. It was so awful at the time i so very nearly gave her one bottle just to break that cycle. Then that night she cried the entire night and i mean the ENTIRE night. So it was a full day of cluster feeding and then a full night of crying with 2 hourly feeds prior and all after labour and delivery, the first week was brutal. It was our first night at home and me and my husband were completely lost with what to do, she seemed to want to feed but just wasn't getting anything out. We were at the end of our tether and were completely lost and tired on what to do, i never bought any formula so that wasn't an option at 4am. Then the morning of day 4 i woke up with Milk, she had a big feed and then a huge sleep. The poor thing was just trying to bring my milk in that whole time.
I do know of women that said "i just had no milk in hospital and he was starving" babies act like that in hospital and it's very nerve wracking when they're soooo hungry and you're only providing these tiny drips of colostrum, but the best thing you can do is let that baby feed off those boobies, the more they feed the sooner you get some milk.
I also recommend getting a lactation consultant. My friend whose milk came in at 6 days had so many problems breastfeeding and a meeting with a lactation consultant made all the difference in the world she said it was the best $120 she ever spend. Although another friend used the same consultant and hated them but saw another one who she loved. So it all depends on the individual. But you should be open to this, getting professional help, more than just a midwife. My hospital has free lactation consultants you should see if yours does too. Although i read an article recently that hospital lactation consultants aren't proper fully qualified consultants... so maybe you might not want to choose that option. The article wasn't Australian (where i am) but i can't remember where it was from.
LOVE LOVE LOVE
It seems to help with everything!
