Hi, I noted that in one of your posts below you mentioned having a supply problem. Do you mind sharing some of the detail regarding your problem, i.e. how low was the supply, do you know why, and what did you use to remedy it and how successful were you?

The reason why I ask is because I was not able to breastfeed my first child after having a post partum hemorrhage, due to having almost no milk at all. This time around I thought it was going better, but I still have the same problem, almost no milk. I don't even coat the entire bottom of a bottle with either side with pumping. I've been taking Fenugreek trying to get something going and I had been pumping (Thursday I decided to give that up).

I don't think anything is going to get my supply going, but I'm having a hard time giving up the idea. I'm trying to decide now whether to return the pump tomorrow or whether to keep it and intensify my efforts. I had been trying to pump every 2 to 3 hours, but it hasn't been easy because my inlaws have been here for the last two weeks. That's why I'm still thinking that I might keep the pump and try again after they leave tomorrow. Maybe I could pump every hour for a couple of days during the day and pump a couple of times at night. I hate giving up but this is seeming futile. On top of it, there's a chance that this problem could be from a hormonal imbalance stemming from the hemorrhage after the first pregnancy. Part of me wants to ignore that and somehow get the milk going, not just for my baby but for me to know everything is working as it should.

But, I also don't understand how some women who don't even want to breastfeed have their milk come in and have trouble getting rid of it and I started from day one with the appropriate schedule and ending up having to supplement because my baby had lost a lot of weight on just breastfeeding. When I pumped and found I was getting almost nothing, I was shocked even though it had happened to me last time too......

Thank you for your very quick and thorough reply.

I absolutely agree with you about how horrible pitocin is. I've had two pregnancies now and both were induced with pitocin. I won't go into detail about these two inductions, except that for the first I had a 1300 cc (2 pint) blood loss from hemorrhage and with the second, I had about 1/2 a bag of pitocin used for the whole induction (3 bags were used with the first one) because I made the doctors use restraint with the pitocin (the delivering doctor was a bit "inconvenienced" as she put it because I delivered at 11Pm at night instead of late afternoon like she would have liked - but tough!).

As for thyroid issues - I ended up on thyroid medicine during the pregnancy. My Free T4 dipped below normal, and thus it was low - not extremely low- but low enough that it was safer to put me on the medicine than to hope it wasn't too low to cause a problem. And, I'm still on it until I get evaluated post pregnancy. At that point a decision will be made whether to take me off or to continue me. It is possible that I could have some other hormonal imbalances too, because of the hemorrhage, but that's a long story.

So, here I am still trying even though it seems like my milk has not come in. I do not have fullness in my breasts - they really feel no different to me. But, I do have some occasional small amount of leaking from one side, which is giving me some hope. Unlike my first baby, though, this one is willing to feed at my breast - he just wasn't getting enough. I found that out when I had a hard time waking him and he was somewhat lethargic. A trip to the ped's office let us know that he had lost too much weight and we needed to supplement. But, just as late as this morning before the inlaws came by unannounced, my littel guy suckled about 8 minutes on my "good" side. He wouldn't take the other side. After that I gave him the bottle.

Last time after two and one half weeks of aggressive pumping (with a hospital grade pump I rented) and a prescription medicine that's supposed to encourage increased prolactin as a side effect, the best I could do with the pump was coat the bottom of the bottle on one side and half that on the other. I know you said you can't rely on pumping to tell you. But that was an increase from nothing from either breast. At that time, the lactation consultant told me it could be that my body was just too traumatized after the hemorrhage.

Now with the inlaws gone, I think I'll continue the pump rental for at least another week and doing it more frequently and also do some more nursing too. Without house guests here, I think it should be easier to relax and give this a greater effort.

Unfortunately, at some point I'm going to need to be able to pump something measurable out if I'm going to continue because I could be going back to work between 4 weeks to 6 weeks from now.

Thanks again for your quick response. It does help to hear that there are people who haven't been able to pump much of anything out who had feeding success.

Now with the inlaws gone, I think I'll continue the pump rental for at least another week and doing it more frequently and also do some more nursing too. Without house guests here, I think it should be easier to relax and give this a greater effort.

Hiya :wave:

I had the same issues and I found that when my inlaws were here I was stressed and this had a major effect on my letdown reflex and supply. I later learned that when you pump, you need to find a comfortable place in the house where you know you will not be interrupted (preferably no-one home) and do something else while pumping. I watched the food channel because it was non taxing and made my mind go blank... this helped enormously!

Good luck, I wish you the best.

:D

I would definitely give it another shot when the inlaws leave. When I started pumping my mother was still here, and stressing about her watching the baby while I pumped did not help at all. LOL. Like Sherbert said, I used to watch the food channel too. Too funny. It's veeeeeery mind numbing. :D

It sounds like you are doing everything you can, but give it time. I learned it certainly doesn't happen over night, and if you find that you never end up being a big producer, just keep in mind that ANY breastmilk is better then none. If your baby is happy to nurse at the breast, let him. When you go back to work there is nothing wrong with using formula at daycare and nursing at home (that is if you never end up responding to the pump). The important thing is to just relax.. I know, easier said then done, right? But at the end of the day you have to just do what you can, and if you never end up being able to exclusively breastfeed, that's fine, just embrace what you are able to do. But don't give up.

Good luck. Keep us posted! ((hugs))

Take a deep breath and relax too...that helps immensley. AND the food channel. soap operas, what ever you can find to do while pumping to take your mind off of it will help.
I too had a crappy time with #1. AND again after pitocin. Like North, I was in labour for 37 hours and had pitocin for 17 hours and had cervigel that brought on regular strength non productive contractions before that. My son was born in stress, apgar of 3 or 4, blue with no cry, no startle. After a few minutes of bagging him he was able to breath on his own but was lethargic for 3-4 days and put on IV as I was also strepb+ and he had also injested some mecconium. He was not even allowed to be at the breast until he was about 36 hours old. For the first 5 days at the hosptial we tried to get him to the breast. I was very lucky in that I had milk early on with the pump so we didnt' need to supplement with formula. But try as I might, after 1 month of pumping and trying to force this kid to the breast with every trick immaginable I had to give up. At that point I had just enough milk to feed him but not much left over. The day after I stopped trying to breastfeed and decided to only pump I had double that amount. I ended up pumping for 7 months and feed him from the freezer for another 3.5 months.
But I always felt like a failure that I couldn't feed my child. I have flat nipples so decided it was all my fault. Well that and the stress of his birth.
In June I had another boy, by emergency c-section (North - despite my best attempts I had to give into medical interventions as my water broke and I had no contractions...after only a few hours on pitocin my sons heartrate dropped below 80 beats a minute and we were rushed to surgery). The c-section is likely what saved my nursing this round as my baby was very alert and not tired and I felt the same. It was still really tough though. He had a heck of time latching on to my flat nipples and I used a shield. The nurses told me that if I used a shield he wouldn't get the hind milk, I wouldn't produce enough to keep nursing, I wouldn't empty enough and could get mastitis. As it turns out, none of this happened and after 2 weeks of pumping every time he fed and freezing enough to feed 3 babies my midwife told me to stop, there was no need to pump once my milk was in. We still had our battles after this. One was switching from football to cradle postion and the other, getting rid of the shield.
He's 5.5 months now and is doing great...over 17 lbs!!!
My suggestion would be to stick with the pump as much as possible and keep the baby at the breast whenever you can but also not to stress about it. Take the herbs, drink tons of fluids (dark beer is supposed to help but maybe just to help you relax LOL!!!). And don't let other people try to tell you what to do or what is right. Whatever works for you is what is best.
GOOD LUCK!!!

I agree with Jordyn about the pump. If you never get baby back to the breast you can feed by exculsively pumping. The trick is to completely, and I mean completely empty your breast and have a really good double breast, electric pump. I've been doing it for 4 months and have had no issues (ie. drying up, as I was told by nurse, mastis etc etc). But you really have to do what works for you and DON'T FEEL GUILTY. If you've given it your best shot, then you have NOTHING to feel bad about. Good Luck!

I WHOLE HEARTLY agree with all that have said do whatever works for YOUR baby!!!!! All babies are different and want things their way......different personalities etc......different babies!!!!

I got sooooo mad at people telling me how I should do things......

Look.....we all are different people and we have different jobs, eat differerent foods.....live in different areas etc.......

Babies are people too and require their own specific needs!

I think it is better to be unique~

Do what works for YOUR baby~

WOW North!!!

I have to tell you, after reading your initial reply on this thread, I have to think.......I wish I had been able to lean on you during my struggle with pumping, breastfeeding, etc. I read your reply, in its entirety. It made sooooo much sense to me.

After going into preterm at 29 weeks, being on Magnesium and getting pump full of steroids to help Dalton's lungs develop and staying on bedrest for a week, I delivered him at almost 31 weeks.

I had every intention of delivering him without drugs, I didn't care how much it hurt and breastfeeding immediately. I did deliver him without drugs, but got Pitocin after delivery. Breastfeeding was a moot point as he went straight to the NICU and was intubated. He was too weak for the first 3 weeks to even be out of the isolette long enough to nuzzle. I did finally find a nurse in the NICU who would shield me, let me kangaroo and let him nuzzle next to the breast, even if he didn't latch. The rest of the nurses freaked out and wouldn't even consider it. When he was 4 weeks old, they finally allowed him to attempt to latch. I would sit in the rocker and try and try and try. I pumped every 2-3 hours next to his bed to no avail. I cried so much, I had the lactation consultant sitting next to me helping me. Nothing, he liked his bottle and that was the end of that. I think the most I ever got from both breasts in one pumping was 60ml. I had to beg my OB to give me Reglan. I didn't know anything about the other supplements or I would have been taking them as well.

I started with the Avent, not knowing how much trouble I would have. I then purchased a double hospital grade pump. The medela pump in style advance. I ran to lactation consultant almost every day. We finally found the 36mm shield, the size of the shield seemed to be an issue with me. They also said that the fact that I have PCOS and gave birth preterm compromised my supply. I pumped until I quit getting anything, even if I got a drop, I kept pumping so I could at least give it to him in the bottle.

In retrospect, I would have continued to try to get him to latch had someone told me about comfort nursing and about the diminished output of pumping. I thought what you see is what you get. If I don't get anything from pumping, then he won't get anything when I nurse.

Makes me want to smack that LC. I should have been told. My son and I both missed out. Kudos to you for being such an informed breastfeeding mother.

Amy

Wow, Amy. Your post made me all teary. It must be hard to be a preterm mommy anyway, but to then put the effort into pumping on top of everything is admirable in and of itself! Kudos to you!!

Just a quick story about pumping.. we're moving back to Canada tomorrow (we fly out tomorrow) so I've been slowly going through my freezer stash to use it up, and because of that I haven't pumped in about a month (or maybe more). Well last night I used the last 2 ounces and thought I'd try to pump a bit so my husband and I could go out tonight, and guess what? Not a drop!! My body got so used to pumping at 7 every morning that when I hooked up to it out of my "normal" shedule it just didn't get it. But, my daughter is pretty much exclusively breastfed and has PLENTY of wet diapers, so I know she's getting plently. That just goes to show that pumping really doens't mean anything in terms of supply.

OP if you are having to bottle feed to supplement, ask to try the SNS. Your baby then will still suck from your beast and get the supplement from the tube. I am sooo glad I used that and not the bottle as I felt bad because I wanted to nurse my baby.

Melissa

I did this too although it was with EBM as my problem wasn't supply but latch issues. Well that and my little guy would get too tired at the breast to get enough to gain. By doing this you will increase your supply too as your body will respond to the suckling.
Good luck!!!
Oh and North...welcome back to the great whilte North...hope you settle in well.

Oh and North...welcome back to the great whilte North...hope you settle in well.


I didn't go. :( I have last minute immigration stuff to get figured out before I go (otherwise I won't be allowed back). Uhg. :mad:

Oh well...hope it works out. And be glad since much of the country is experiencing crappy weather right now.
Bea - I noticed from another post that you were wondering how long to keep at it before giving up pumping. I stuck with it for a month...well I should say I stuck with trying to bf and pump that long and then just gave up and began pumping only. Some of the suggestions I was given to help me were to put warm compresses on my breasts before pumping and massage while pumping. Also skin to skin contact with the baby is supposed to help.
How much fenugreek and blessed thistle are you taking? My midwife suggested I take 3 caps 3-4 times a day when I was struggling with nursing this go around. I didn't end up needing to this time but did take it with ds#1 and I think I took abit less than this and saw improvement immediately but not a huge amount. I think it took about 5 days to really become noticeable.
Good luck to you, I really hope it works for you.

I'm taking 4 of the Fenugreek 3 times a day and 2 of the Blessed Thistle 3 times a day.

Take the same amount of blessed thistle as the fenugreek.