On Making a Decision and Being Okay With It (part II of III)

Lately (and over the last 3 years) I have heard all kinds of stories of women, my friends and my family making the best decisions they can regarding breastfeeding and their baby.

One friend was determined to breast feed. Her daughter had a very difficult time latching on and had a tongue thrust. She tried nursing when she could and then pumped and fed her daughter expressed milk through a 5 cc syringe attached to a tube. Dad would tape it on his finger and try to get baby to latch on to his finger while releasing milk from the tube. They were advised to do this at 2-3 hour increments around the clock. The whole fiasco, from waking to feeding to changing took at least 45 minutes, which meant, once you settle back into bed and will yourself to fall back asleep, very little sleep at all. But, baby caught on and began latching and nursing properly. Mom was happy, baby was happy, all was well.

One friend suddenly stopped producing fat in her milk. This after successfully nursing for 10 weeks. If you know anything about breastfeeding, you know that the first milk the baby gets is foremilk, it is sweet watery milk designed to hydrate the baby. The second milk they get, from the same breast, is hind milk, this is fatty milk designed to fill the baby up, make them feel full and give them calories to burn. The hind milk also produces a type of laxative - thus explaining the constant pooping of breastfed babies! So, anyway, this mom’s baby suddenly became fussy, gassy and spitty-upy (after previously not gaining as much weight as expected), as she was trying to sustain herself on essentially sugar water. She probably felt a little hungry and did not have the fat to keep her full and help her keep the liquid down and digest it. This problem was discovered during a consultation with a lactation nurse for her county. The lactation consultant suggested that she pump, spacing her pumping out longer than her daughter usually ate so that she was not emptying her breasts as often as before, which sometimes would stimulate fat production. She also suggested that mom think about giving the baby some formula and see if it improved her fussiness. The formula did that, right away. No more gassy, spitty, fussy baby. And, mom continued to pump and mixed her bottles half-and-half. The doctor suggested that she could give herself injections of oxytocin to stimulate release of hind milk. With only 2 weeks to go on her maternity leave, she opted to wean her from nursing and switch over to formula, keeping her expressed breast milk for rice cereal later. Baby is happy, mom is happy, all is well.

Another friend had a baby recently and started nursing in the hospital. She had intense pain with nursing, but thought that was normal, so she continued. She endured it for her daughter. But, after arriving home, her daughter pulled off after nursing and had blood in her mouth. Blood from her mom’s nipple. Ouch! So, she has been consulting experts and trying different things to help her breasts heal, including pumping. She had to start mixing formula with the expressed milk because she wasn’t able to pump enough and wants to go back to nursing after her nipples heal a little, but is worried about supply issues since she is already supplementing. Baby is happy, mom is getting there…

And, yet another friend has a one week old baby. The baby wasn’t gaining weight like the nurses had hoped after leaving the hospital. This, of course, worried mom, who had been pumping the side that baby didn’t nurse on at each feeding to start stock piling milk for when she returned to work. Dad gave the baby a bottle of expressed milk between feedings and baby sucked it dry. She was having trouble latching on again and mom and baby decided that, to make everyone happy, baby would drink expressed milk. Baby is happy, mom is… guilty.

Mom is guilty. That’s the underlying theme in all of this trouble. If you could press “pause” on the baby’s hungry little tummy, figure out some solutions and then press “play” again, we could all nurse long term. But, let’s face it, while we’re learning, and hurting, and asking and consulting, baby is still hungry. And growing. And we’re trying to make a good decision.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the conclusion...