Megan’s Breastfeeding Story.

I had my daughter in 2016 and as soon as we had skin-to-skin she started to wriggle herself towards the boob. It was a bit painful getting the latch right, especially as my milk came in and I was so engorged but a fairy godmother of a health visitor arrived on day 5 and altered my positioning slightly and from that moment we were off! It was the easiest thing in the world and we were a great team until it felt like a joint decision to stop after a year.

I had a very anxious pregnancy with my son. It was following a miscarriage, we had shown high risk for Down’s syndrome at 12 weeks and needed a few growth scans as my bump kept measuring small. Luckily it was always fine but I just couldn’t relax and enjoy being pregnant. I just kept thinking as soon as he’s here I’ll be fine, I’ve done it before and know what to expect... a global pandemic wasn’t expected though!!

Thankfully Woody arrived on 4 May in the water at the birth centre so my husband was able to stay with me the whole time and it was my dream labour, just 3 hours with gas and air and breathing (my daughter had been 29 hours resulting in labour ward and a ventouse delivery). I couldn’t believe how good I felt! I was up in bed eating take away pizza a couple of hours after! He didn’t take to the breast as quickly as my daughter did and when he did it was painful but I remember thinking ‘it’s ok we can work on the latch later...’ this was such an error, the damage was done and I had a blister.

On his checks the next day the midwife said he had a slight tongue-tie but told me that some babies can work out feeding without needing a snip and to see how we got on. Unfortunately what followed was weeks of pain, tears and disappointment. My nipples were cracked, blistered and bleeding. I couldn’t get Woody to open his mouth wide enough to latch on so had multiple zoom calls with health visitors and the local breastfeeding support. In the end we did get a good latch and i wasn’t in pain anymore but it just didn’t feel right. Woody would latch on but come straight off screaming. It was so upsetting that something I felt should be a comfort and settling for him was causing him so much distress.

Again I spoke to health visitors who were all so lovely but they said as long as I wasn’t in pain and he was putting on weight it was fine. We tried different positions and loads of winding but everything kept coming back to ‘maybe it’s the tongue-tie’. In the end after 5 weeks we found someone who could come to the house and snip his tongue. The days after were the worst. The midwife who performed the procedure told us to just go back to ‘the new born bubble’ with lots of skin-to-skin and try different positions but it was horrific. It was a hot day, we were both half naked, sweating and crying. I so nearly gave up but the guilt I felt at the thought of giving him a bottle was overwhelming, especially as my daughter was exclusively breastfed for 6 months, I couldn’t bear the though of not being able to do the same for him.

In the end I rang the health visitors in floods of tears who told me to come in and see them. To see a real human, kind face in the middle of lockdown was just wonderful. She checked my latch, weighed Woody and reassured me that everything was fine. I just needed to keep going as getting the tongue-tie snipped was basically like starting again.

The local breastfeeding support team were wonderful as well and checked in on me every few days to see how I was doing. They said it wouldn’t be something that got better over night but slowly the number of good feeds will start to over take the bad ones and this was so true.

By 8 weeks I felt like I was coming out of the fog. We’re 13 weeks now and I still have the odd bad feed but mostly when he’s over tired or too hungry. Looking back I think we’ve just been really unlucky. As well as the tongue-tie I think I’ve got a very heavy flow which can choke him a bit sometimes and he was really congested for the first 10 weeks as well which didn’t help.

Obviously the whole Covid thing has added to it an already stressful start too. I’ve really missed meeting up with other mums and babies to be able to compare and swap stories. I’ve obsessed over every thing, convinced myself he’s too small and not getting what he needs from me when he’s actually totally fine and turning into a really happy little baby! If I hadn’t breastfed my daughter for so long and Woody had been my only experience of it I definitely would have given up which would have been such a shame.

I really wish there was more information about tongue-tie during pregnancy and midwives were able to offer the option to snip the tongue-tie in the first few days. It is so common that I really think it would make such a difference to so many families if they didn’t have to try and feed with it.

I could go on forever about feeding but to summarise here are a few things I wish I’d been told this time...!

- Every baby is different, get to know your baby as they are not what your previous experiences have been

- If the latch is painful it’s not right, even the first one! If there’s any pain take them off and re-latch. If you’re still in hospital ask midwives to help you. If you persevere with one bad feed you’ll kick yourself when you’ve got a blister and feeding is sore for days after!

- Breastfeeding is hard!! you’ll more than likely think about hitting the bottle but if you really want to feed you will, have faith in yourself.

- Get a tongue-tie snipped as soon as you’re aware of it. I don’t know anyone who has fed through it without getting it shipped eventually and it just wastes time!

- Get help and advice, even amongst all the coronavirus madness the health visitors and breastfeeding teams are there and ready to help, you are not alone!!

- Lansinoh cream is awesome and magical.

- You’ll come out of the newborn fog feeling so proud of yourself that you’ve grown this amazing little thing inside but you’re still growing them outside and every time they hit a little milestone it’s the best feeling!