Breastfeeding in the First Fortnight

Written by Jodi Cleghorn Sunday, July 05 2009 07:31

Mom Topics - Breastfeeding

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In The Best Breastfeeding Advice, I shared the three pearls of wisdom an old friend incidentally shared with me while I was pregnant, which helped me through my early weeks of breastfeeding.

1. Breastfeeding hurts like hell at the beginning.
2. Breastfeeding is hard when you’re starting out.
3. Breastfeeding is worth every moment of the struggles.

Here I share the pain, the difficulties and the small joys which awaited me in my own journey through the early weeks of breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding Hurts

Despite a euphoric and uncomplicated birth at home, there was a delay in birthing my placenta. For this reason I was encouraged to put Dylan to my breast to feed, to stimulate the release of oxytocin (which helps to expel the placenta and minimise the risk of serious bleeding).

 

The difficulty lay in the fact the tiny baby cradled in my arms was not interested in either of my breasts. Dylan attached badly the first time I wrestled him successfully to my breast. When he pulled off less than a minute later, I saw the legacy of his first time - a huge blister.

From then on, every time he latched his tiny mouth around my areola and sucked in my blistered and grazed nipples I could feel the tears sting in my eyes. I would bite down, grinding my teeth through the twenty minutes I allowed him, unable to cope with longer feeds. Had Dylan had his way he would have been permanently attached to my breast. I tried favouring one breast over the other to give the blistered nipple a chance to heal but in the end they were both a mess.

It was like adding insult to injury, given the serious tearing in my perineum. At times as I sat there feeding, it felt like, between birthing and breastfeeding, every soft and vulnerable part of my body had been shredded or pulverised.

But through the teeth grinding, the biting back of tears and the counting down of minutes to zero, I remembered Melanie’s story.

I told myself:
Two weeks. Just two weeks. If Melanie can do it, I can do it too. If I can get through the first two weeks it will all be OK.

Breastfeeding is Hard

While it was intuitive to put Dylan to my breast, the ease of breastfeeding started and ended with the maternal urge to breastfeed.

It was often a struggle to maneuver his head into the right position, struggling to make his head, his mouth, my breast and my nipple all line up. It did feel like rocket science - holding his head in a way which didn’t make him push back as the muscles in my arms, my neck, shoulders and back all screamed in protest.

Then there was his attachment which was all wrong. He would suck in his bottom lip and it was frustrating to have to take him off every time the attachment was wrong and start again - help him to keep his mouth wide open to latch on properly. Or to gently tease out the bottom lip while he was sucking. All the time knowing if I wasn’t consistent he would fall into a lazy attachment which wasn’t going to be any use to either of us further down the track.

Sometimes I'd get apathetic about it all and just leave him there without adjusting the attachment.

I’d think:
Stuff it. It’s too hard. It’s too frustrating. I don’t want to. Why can’t he just go on properly? Why can’t it just BE EASY.

But always in the back of my mind was a whisper, a promise of better things to come.

Breastfeeding is Worth It

When Dylan was ten days old my nipples finally healed, the bright pink flesh playing tribute to the trauma of that first week and a half. I could put him to my breast without holding my breathe or playing hostage to the digital clock beside the bed. I had also by then learned to breastfeed lying down on my side which allowed me to rest my sacral area and my perineum – both of which were healing slowly birth.

The tension began to release through my body. I started to relax and enjoy the time spent breastfeeding. I loved the way Dylan’s unfocused gaze met mine and the feel of his warm, soft brand new skin against mine – the beginning of our three year love affair with breastfeeding. There were new and varied challenges in the next three years but nothing as harsh or unrelenting as those first ten days. Doing the hard yards in the beginning allowed me to believe I could cope with any other breastfeeding difficulties which cropped up.

Sharing Our Stories

Melanie didn’t come straight out and give me her advice in bullet points. I would probably have recoiled from the lecture-like advice, being someone who hates to be “told” what to do or how to do it. Instead she shared her story with me and the breastfeeding wisdom inherent in it.

It wasn’t meant as a horror story intended to scare the pants off me or dissuade me from breastfeeding. I wasn’t meant as a preaching session. And she certainly didn’t tell me for the need to be pitied for her experience. It was simply her breastfeeding story. And I will be forever grateful for it.

It is my wish for all women to be able to share their early breastfeeding stories so new mothers go into breastfeeding with realistic expectations. To do this, mothers who have already put in breastfeeding miles need to consider sharing with honesty and candor their struggles and the. Before sharing, ask yourself, what was the hardest and the most wonderful parts of those early weeks. That is always a good place to start.

Related Article

The Best Breastfeeding Advice

Jodi Cleghorn is a Brisbane mother, writer, lactivist and natural birth advocate. When she's not writing breastfeeding articles she is working on her fiction stories including a new novella and a fledgling publishing project Chinese Whisperings. Her new blog Writing in Black and White chronicles her journey as a writer, editor and publisher. This week she intends to enjoy the last week of her holidays in the beautiful tropical winter sun of Cairns with family and old friends..

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