Breastfeeding Learning Curve

During my pregnancy I was very determined to breastfeed once the baby arrived, and I assumed that breastfeeding is something that comes naturally. That it's maybe a bit uncomfortable at first, but babies know how to eat, boobs automatically make milk, and what could the mom possibly do to mess up the breastfeeding process? Turns out, there's a lot more to breastfeeding than I originally thought.

At the hospital, I was getting conflicting information from the nurses, the lactation consultants, and my own body. Tired from labor and sleep deprived, I thought that I was incorrectly remembering what people were telling me-- that I kept doing things wrong, rather than realizing that different people were telling me different things. Things that sometimes directly contradicted what someone else had told me. I found out later that the nurses at my hospital are not required to have any formal training in breastfeeding, so many nurses are simply giving what they think is good advice, based on their own personal experience. And it's not always right.

On top of that confusion, the lactation consultants were having me pump my breast milk to "encourage my milk supply to come in." I realize now that my milk was coming in just fine. Elise was eating well, but the lactation consultants scared me into thinking that she wasn't and that if I didn't pump, my breasts wouldn't be stimulated enough to make the amount of milk that she'd need as she got bigger.

I wish I'd have paid attention to what was really going on. The hospital's lactation consultants were having me use this big, electric, hospital-grade breast pump... and telling me that I should rent it for when I went home with the baby. They were telling me that I would need to keep pumping and that the hand-pump that I had already bought wouldn't be as good as the electric one I could rent from them. That makes no sense to me now. But at the time, I believed them.

The first day or two of breastfeeding were hard, not only because I was being told that Elise wasn't eating enough (again, I don't believe that to be true now) but because my nipples got hurt from the way Elise was feeding. Little blood vessels in my nipples burst and it became very painful when Elise would feed. I continued breastfeeding her anyway. The nurses and lactation consultants kept trying to figure out what was going on, but Elise was making a good latch onto my breast most of the time, so they could never see what the problem was to help correct it.

On top of that, when my real milk started coming in and my breasts were sore from filling up I was encouraged to pump to relieve the pressure, but really it was overstimulating my breasts. Now, because of this bad advice, I make too much milk and I'm having to work at readjusting my body to make less milk.

One of our friends gave us a gift of two visits with a lactation consultant that works for a different company that the one hired by my local hospital. And this lactation consultant has been very good. Helped me a lot. I don't pump anymore, since there's no need for it right now. The new lactation consultant showed me how to hand-express milk, for when I need to relieve a little bit of pressure because the baby hasn't eaten in a while. Hand expressing won't stimulate my breasts as much, which is good because right now I want to encourage my breasts to make less milk.

Overproducing milk is hard on the baby, too. If there's too much milk, the baby ends up drinking mostly fore-milk, which is heavy in lactose, and not enough hind-milk, which is heavy in protein. Too much fore-milk upsets the baby's tummy, making her very gassy, making her spit-up a lot, and causing other problems.

Now that my milk supply is starting to adjust to the right amount for Elise, she and I are both a lot happier. I see why some people give up on breastfeeding (as opposed to making a conscious choice to quit for other reasons). I was very determined to make it work for us, and I'm grateful for the extra help that we got from the good lactation consultant.

Yay for boobie food!