So I have told you the story of my struggle to breastfeed my first child. What happened with my second child? Was it easy because I knew what I was doing? Nope!
Again I was determined to breastfeed. I kept saying that I was happy to go either way depending on the child but in my mind I was still determined to breastfeed this child. My second child was a girl. Her birth was pretty normal and she was a healthy birth weight. She had no problems attaching and feeding. All was looking good. But I was in pain, lots and lots of pain. I didn't find out what it was until later, Raynaud's syndrome. This is where spasms in the vascular system cause a lack of circulation. It most often occurs in the elderly in their extremities but it can also happen to breastfeeding mothers in their nipples. And it is very painful. You know how it feels to lick something very cold and get stuck to it, now imagine doing this with a damp nipple instead. Yep very painful. It got to the point where I just could not stand it. In the middle of the night one night while I was still in hospital, I asked the midwives to give her a bottle. I couldn't do it. I was exhausted and sleep deprived. They made me read and sign a consent form that stated I knew that breastfeeding was the best for my baby but was choosing to give her a bottle anyway. I was too tired at the time to be upset about this but later I was outraged. They had seen me all but screaming with pain as I fed my baby they knew it wasn't a decision that I was taking lightly. Instead of offering me support and sympathy they made it even harder. None of them even looked to see if there was a problem they had just decided I was not coping with the usual pain you get when you first started breastfeeding.
However after that I continued to breastfeed my baby and a few days after I got home the midwife that did the home visit to check on me and the baby told me what was causing the pain in my nipples, she diagnosed it with a couple of simple questions, and the oh so simple cure for it. I had to take magnesium supplements. With in days it stopped and I could feed the baby in comfort. Unfortunately by then she had started to display the same symptoms as her brother had almost three years earlier. The constantly wanting to feed, the screaming and drawing up of the legs, the inability to sleep. When she was six days old, Boxing day, I was down at A and E with her because she was vomiting up blood. I got very annoyed when every nurse and doctor that spoke to me, would ask, before anything else, "is she your first child?". When I told them no they seemed to start taking me seriously. As if for some reason having some experience at being a mother somehow made her vomiting blood more serious. They all also asked if the blood was from me, from cracked nipples, to the point where I pulled out one of my boobs to a nurse to show her I didn't have cracked nipples at all. After many hours and many tests they finally decided that she had overfed, probably due to reflux and had caused a split somewhere in her esophagus. They sent us home and I later took her to the pediatrician. He put her on medication for reflux which seemed to help a bit.
By this stage our son had been referred to a pediatric gastroenterologist (sp?). We had to travel three hours to another city to see him. He diagnosed him with a "gastrointestinal motility disorder", uncoordinated movement of the muscles in the digestive system. Later after talking to other members of my family I found it was a common problem amongst my relatives. As an infant on liquid feeds this uncoordinated movement causes the milk to rush straight through the bowel. Eventually causing a type of acquired lactose intolerance. Later when solid feeds are started it causes constipation which is hard to diagnose because there is also overflow diarrhea where the body pushes liquid fecal matter past the blockage, very graphic I know, sorry. All this results in "colic", which I once heard a very wise man say "is a five letter word for we have no idea what the problem is!" Reflux, gas pain, hunger, cramps, the works. The poor kids, no wonder they screamed.
At six weeks we took my daughter down to the A and E at the big hospital in our city. She was screaming at the top of her lungs and did so for hours while we waited. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do but we needed help and no one seemed to be paying any attention. She was admitted and she and I were there for almost a week. They took her off breast milk and put her on formula. I expressed constantly to try and keep my supply up. I went home with a tonne of frozen breast milk. She settled down almost immediately on the formula. When she was discharged we had no answers and no offer of follow up. I felt very let down.
I asked my GP for a referral to QEII in the hope that they might be able to help us. But no such luck. It was a difficult stay because I had my son (then a very active almost 3 yo) with me too and my husband had to work. So I was caring for two children in a strange environment and this time the midwives and nurses where much less helpful and sympathetic. At one stage we even had to spend the day cramped up in our little room because Family Services had come to take a couple of unfortunate kids away from their mother. On the day of discharge one nurse talked to me and realized that I was suffering from severe postnatal depression but was unable to do anything to help me, it was too late. The stay had really been a total waste of time and nothing but a stress. Back home things continued as they had. Hours on end of colic and my feeling like a failure again.
The Pediatric Gastro finally saw my daughter at 3 months, after I got a referral from my wonderful GP, and diagnosed her the same as our son. Why did the top up feeds settle her? They were lactose free, they were thicker and heavier so went through the gut slower. We started adding thickner to her feeds and giving her a bottle every second feed. That made a huge difference. It wasn't long before things settled down. Being a Librarian through both of the ordeals of my children's feeding problems I had researched and read everything I could find. So I realised that my children could never be fully breast fed and it wasn't my fault. I still felt like a failure but at least I had more realistic expectations. My daughter ended up being partially breastfed until she was 15 months of age. Then I came down with pneumonia again. After a weekend in hospital she refused to take the breast and I decided that I it was time to wean her.
Now with my third child I have been researching bottles rather than ways to breastfeed. I know I am going to cop it from the breastfeeding nazis at the hospital and after. I will breast feed this child for the first few days possibly weeks but at the first sign of ANY problems I am going to put the baby straight onto the bottle. I have two older children that need their mum and I can't let myself get caught up in the sleep depriving, self doubting cycle that I did with the other two. My expectations are far more realistic this time. If I can breastfeed fantastic but if it doesn't work I am not going to make myself sick over it. It will be sad but I am not going to watch this baby scream in pain because of some ideal. And if the breastfeeding nazis have anything to say they can stick it, honestly they haven't been through what I have so they have no right to an opinion in my world!
No comments:
Post a Comment