lundi 8 mai 2017
How 1 Mom's "Obsession" to Exclusively Breastfeed Almost Killed Her Baby
Breast is best . . . until your baby nearly starves to death.
That's the message one mom sent with a candid Reddit post about her struggles with breastfeeding her newborn son, now 15 weeks old.
"I have put literal blood, sweat, and tears into breastfeeding with low supply," she wrote. "Only I didn't realize I had low supply. My kid would have died without formula, it was that bad. He was in the [hospital's Special Care Baby Unit] until almost 2 weeks old due to accidental starvation because I had no idea my baby was starving."
The first-time parent explains how no one stepped in to intervene, not even nurses who could have easily detected the early warning signs.
"The nurses would come in and ask me if he was having wet diapers and I'd rub my finger in it and think 'that kinda feels almost wet?'" she wrote. "It wasn't until he was admitted to the SCBU and we started supplementing formula that I realized what a real wet diaper looked and felt like. And I cried and cried and cried because I realized how hungry my poor baby had been since he was born."
Even her supposed friend came down hard on her for questioning breastfeeding.
"My baby was nursing almost every second of every hour of every day until he fell asleep too exhausted to nurse anymore. I didn't think this was normal, I was stressed and harassed by my lactivist 'friend' who told me this was normal for a breastfed baby and I needed to tough it out. Well, that shit nearly killed my baby. I heard the usual chime of 'cluster feeding' again and again. . . . I was made by my friend to feel like I just wanted an excuse to use formula and that I just couldn't handle what real breastfeeding mums go through."
When she finally introduced formula, doctors encouraged her to maintain a strict regimen of breastfeeding attempts followed by formula and around-the-clock pumping. They'd say the same pseudo-encouraging things like "the baby can remove more milk from the breast than a pump can" and how it's all about "supply and demand!"
But she knew it wasn't helping.
Despite these red flags, the nurses encouraged me to try to exclusively breastfeed my baby again. And I agreed because I presumed it must be safe because they said to do it. His latch was incredibly painful. He had a slight tongue tie that was deemed non restrictive yet was remedied anyway and made no difference to his feeding. My nipples bled, baby screamed constantly and I was told it was normal. I still pumped around the clock to "encourage my milk supply." Yup. Worst mother ever over here. I still didn't realize then that my baby and I were let down by people who should have realized there was a low-supply issue going on.
Eventually I stopped pumping. I was done wasting my hours hooked up to a pump watching other people cuddle and parent my baby while I was tangled up in pumps and tubes and bottles for 5 ounces per day. I had accepted not defeat, but that I was making myself unwell with the stress and lack of sleep and for what? Baby was happy with formula. Baby was healthy with formula!
Now he's 15 weeks old and every single one of his feeds is formula, because that's what he needs to survive and my body just can't give him what he needs to thrive. But we still nurse all throughout the day! It's wonderful. We enjoy our booby cuddles and when he cries it soothes him and he drifts off to sleep. He's not getting ANY milk beyond a dribble now. I wish I'd done better by my son by giving him formula feeds sooner instead of letting him suffer and go hungry for MY obsession to have him exclusively breastfeed.
This mom is still proud of their breastfeeding relationship, and that they continued to "dry nurse" safely, even when it's not about ounces anymore. And her son, who had been readmitted to the hospital for dropping 11-percent of birth weight in those first weeks, is faring much better these days. "HE IS HUMUNGOUS. He's 94th percentile!"
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