Hi mummies,
I'm new to this thread. Having c-sect with ligation at TMC for 3rd child (boy) betw 6th -12th June, though EDD is 20th June. First 2 kids are both girls, 2007 and 2010.
I'm a SAHM, total latch-on breastfeeding for both gals, till I got pregnant (1st: 2 yrs old, 2nd: 21 mths) and the milk dried up eventually.
My first bf-ing experience was horrible for the first 2 months. Thinking back, I blame it on the c-sect, giving me baby after delivery only after 4 hrs, quite long breaks like 4 hrs in betw feeds, esp at nights giving excuse that u should be resting, baby with small mouth and princess-like drinking slowly, very un-knowledgeable and discouraging parents and inexperienced breasts
.
Resulted in very bad jaundice, admitted at day 7. sore nipples and even mastitis at week 7.
Lessons learnt:
- Before delivery (can even be weeks before), start massaging breasts during warm showers, and before operation.
- For c-sect, demand for baby to be given to you to be breastfed preferably within 1 or 2 hours. husbands help to be thick-skinned to demand if they don't give. This time, I am going to be thick-skinned and ask for skin-to-skin even at the operating theatre. Otherwise, natural deliveries start skin-to-skin breastfeeding immediately after delivery.
http://obnurse35yrs.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/skin-to-skin-minutes-after-cs-in-the-or-speaking-up-and-making-it-happen/
- if meconium (black poo) changes to yellowish by 2nd or 3rd day, it's quite safe to say your baby is drinking enough milk to flush out. My first one still had blackish poo at day 7!!! That's why serious jaundice. cos my milk only came in day 4 and very little. Didn't even have colostrum first few days.
- try to let baby room-in as much as possible, except when need help to change diapers (though seriously... can change ourselves lah...), bathing time and injections time so that I can be more attuned to baby's needs and cries. otherwise your babies will be left to cry and cry in the nursery cos they just don't have enough manpower to take care of your babies well or pass to you immediately.
I read alot of breastfeeding books for first baby. Favourite is
http://www.amazon.com/Breastfeeding-Made-Simple-Natural-Nursing/dp/1572248610 which can be borrowed from NLB.
2nd baby, I started to go online to find sites like
http://www.lowmilksupply.org/.
And the best discovery that I made is the wonders of videos online! So much better than reading books cos you get to see how they do it. What's a wrong latch etc, how to massage, compress etc.
http://www.breastfeedinginc.ca/content.php?pagename=videos
Or simply google, youtube whatever things u want. Which is why bringing your laptop or ipad with WIFI is so important for you to get refreshed on how to do it when the lactation consultant is not here yet. and your husband can view with u and help to see whether u got it right and also to help to massage for u.
Ok. enough for now. Sorry for first time long post cos I have become a breastfeeding advocate, after overcoming the first difficult 2 months cos of a supportive aunty who also bf both kids till they were 3, and my husband, who was also lazy to sterilize the bottles.
only 1% or less of women do not have the physical ability to breastfeed. That's a super low chance of you not having BM.
Cos most of the previous generation didn't bf, many elderly do not know how to give us the right support, yes, even GPs, doctors, some PDs, and horror of horrors, nurses in hospitals. and now no more village living where we naturally learn from other women how to bf by seeing them bf, the next best thing is online videos
. And arm ourselves with the science behind breastfeeding. Knowledge is power! We are created to bf. FM is such a recent invention cos of marketing companies and to make it easy for women into the workforce cos of industrialization.