30/11/2015

Samantha’s long and bumpy road

s-7337My name is Samantha and my breast feeding journey has been a long and bumpy road. It started 2 years ago when I had my daughter, I wanted nothing more than to breast feed her. So as soon as she’d arrived I popped her straight on the breast, it hurt, bad! I said this to the midwife, she replied with “you’ll get used to it” Anyway, after a short stay in Neo natal (for jaundice and poor weight gain) and having more than several nurses, midwives, lactation consultant and paediatricians look in her mouth and watch me breastfeed, no real solution was offered they told me she was feeding fine but my supply was low, so they sent us home with a script for domperidone to increase my supply. Needless to say, I lasted just shy of 3 weeks breast feeding her. I just couldn’t cope with the pain any longer, I dreaded every feed and was in tears more often than not! Fast forward to me being pregnant with my little boy, I was 7 months along and really starting to panic about breastfeeding which helped me intensify my research, and after speaking with a lovely mum in a support group I’m in, I made contact with a private lactation consultant to have my daughter assessed for lip and or tongue tie and to hopefully gain some tips for successfully breastfeeding our second baby past 3 weeks! It turns out, my daughter has a posterior tongue tie as well as an upper lip tie, and it was likely our son would be born the same as it can be hereditary. The very moment my son arrived hubby and I looked in his mouth and sure enough he had the same, feeding him was agonising, like razor blades hacking at my nipples!!  Again I spoke with a couple of midwives on the ward to which they replied “no, he’s fine. No lip or tongue tie”

So we discharged within 24 hours after birth and were in touch with the private lactation consultant. She confirmed he had both ties and booked us an appointment for assessment and revision (laser) with a dentist that comes to Adelaide once a month from Melbourne. We went through (funnily enough) 3 weeks of painful feeding, mixing between breast and syringe feeding to give my nipples a break every now and again, and expressing after every feed to keep my supply up, before the dentist made it to Adelaide. The dentist confirmed both children have category 4 upper lip and posterior tongue tie, and Alexander’s was revised on the spot as he was so young. Lilianna’s will have to wait until she is a bit older so she can go under anesthetic. We had to wait those 3 gruelling weeks to see the Melbourne dentist as no medic in Adelaide recognises posterior tongue tie. So here we are almost 5 weeks after the procedure and I can happily say I’m breastfeeding my son with no pain whatsoever! Every now and again I almost need to pinch myself for it to be real! I’m so proud that I am able to breastfeed, and I’m really excited to be apart of this amazing project. I always say, “never judge a person, we’re all fighting our own battles. Some people share, others don’t”.  Even if this project helps one mumma to have the confidence to breast feed in public, seek a little more help or support or simply help her to feel she is not alone, then all I can say is we’ve succeeded! Xx
30/11/2015