Natassja’s Breastfeeding Story

“There were a lot of interventions that made it harder to breastfeed at the beginning.

It was hard at the beginning of the hospital. I went in knowing that I may not be able to breastfeed, but really wanting to give it a try. From my first contact with breastfeeding, when they put him on my chest, the nurse started massaging my breast, really squeezing hard. I just gave birth and everything was so tender.
So, at the hospital there was a lot of, I would call it, violent manipulation. So I thought that was how I was supposed to hand express. I was giving myself bruises trying to get colostrum out.

And I would hand express into a spoon and then spoon feed it to him. I was trying so hard to it get out, like scrape my nipple with the edge of the plastic spoon, just trying to get every little drop.

I had gestational diabetes, so they kept testing his blood sugars. My diabetes was controlled all through pregnancy. I didn’t have to be on insulin or anything. It was really tightly controlled with diet.

He was small when he was born, you wouldn’t have known he was a GD baby but they kept testing his blood sugar and it kept dipping, which I think [must be normal for] every baby because you’re waiting for the milk to come in.

They kept pushing formula because they were like, we need to have two good results in a row. This was the first day. It took five [days for my milk to come in]. On the fourth day they gave me domperidone and that’s what got everything started.

There was one nurse who told me that because I had a [breast] reduction, if I tried to breastfeed that I would quote, “Starve your baby.” And I just cried.
I had an allergic reaction to the lidocaine ointment they gave me. So everything was swollen and hard. I was an agony. I was itching more than I itched when I had chicken pox. So they gave me Benadryl to help with the swelling, but I think that delayed my milk coming in.

I was also being followed by a lactation clinic. They tweaked my domperidone dosage, but told me my son’s tongue tie was the real issue. Even after we had been breastfeeding for a month and he was gaining beautifully, they told me that my supply would drop off after three months with or without medication if we didn’t fix the tie. Against my better judgment, we finally gave in.

I have never been more traumatized by a single event in my life, and I have not had an easy life. I know it’s helped lots of other parents and babies, but when they cut my son’s tie, I felt like I’d betrayed him. It was the first time he ever cried real tears.

Then afterwards there were torturous exercises we were supposed to do to keep it from reattaching that felt so inhumane and I’d cry and feel sick to my stomach whenever we had to do them.

Finally when he started to develop an oral aversion to everything, even my breasts, we decided to leave him alone. We stopped the exercises and the tie reattached. He’s fine with it, he’s continued to gain weight right along his curve and my supply is fine too.

I think if it hadn’t been for my midwife. We wouldn’t have been successful. They did the at home visits for the first five days. Weighing him every day. He was back up to his birth weight after one week.
But they gave us an SNS (supplementary nursing system - a tiny newborn-sized GI tube). We’d put formula in the little cup, put this end in the little cup. I would hold this end that would go alongside my nipple and try to get him to latch. Chris would hold the cup and monitor it. This is how he ate until my milk came in. It was a two person job. Truth be told, probably a three person job.

Sometimes we think about how hard it was to get the right latch and everything at the beginning, and now it’s just like he’s just wiggling and slurping and he’s getting enough.”