31 Days of Breastfeeding Journeys | Day 13 | World Breastfeeding Week 2016
"Growing up my mother was a La Leche League Leader, and very pro-“breast is best”, so I always knew I wanted to breastfeed my babies. My mother passed away in 2012 from lung cancer and at the time my husband and I were dealing with a bit of infertility. After about 2 years of trying we finally had our first child, a daughter.
During pregnancy I had taken a breastfeeding class in order to prepare myself a little, so I knew that there might be some struggles, but that statistically 98% of women CAN breastfeed and that it should not hurt. Armed with those two pieces of information I struggled through a myriad of issues in the first 3 months of my daughter’s life. She had a severe anterior tongue tie, which was misdiagnosed and improperly treated 3 times before being corrected properly. I had oversupply due to my IV fluids at her birth, then since she was not properly latching (too shallow) my supply plummeted and I dealt with low supply and had to supplement. I reached out to 3 different IBCLCs and finally with their support dealt with all the issues we had. We had to use a nipple shield for the first 8 weeks because my daughter could not latch deep enough. My daughter and I had a severe case of thrush/yeast due to me getting mastitis early on when my daughter was not removing enough milk.
I had days where I did not get out of bed because all I did was nurse, pump, feed baby pumped milk and formula then repeated this process. Though it was a difficult first three months I look back and know it was worth it, because throughout my second pregnancy I continue to breastfeed my then 14 - 24 month old daughter. This might not seem so important, but it was what saved my son’s nursing relationship.
When we had our second child, my son, he was born with a congenital heart defect and was on an NG tube for nearly a month before I got him to breast feed. Through the 5 week stay at Children’s Hospital and the round the clock pumping and nursing of a toddler, nursing helped keep me grounded. It also helped keep my supply up for my son. Hopefully many of you will not know how hard it is to nurse a child off of an NG tube, but it is possible and from my perspective worth all the effort. My son had open heart surgery at one week old and he was EBF’d from approximately 1 month old until 6.5 months when we introduced solids. I am currently tandem nursing both my children at 2.75 years and 9 month old, and wouldn’t have it any other way! Nursing has taught me so much, and helped me in so many ways." ~ Becca
Please help spread Breastfeeding awareness and share this post. Check back tomorrow to see more pictures and read all about another Mama’s Journey through breastfeeding.