Jessica’s Feeding Story ✨
Time for another of your real, amazing breastfeeding journey shares. This is Jessica’s story, in her own words - thank you so much for sharing 🤍
“Our breastfeeding story, like many others, hasn’t been the smoothest of rides but I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.
Henry was born via emergency caesarean after a not so straightforward pregnancy and labour. I was well supported by some amazing midwives (who I’m fortunate enough to call my colleagues and friends being a midwife myself) and he started to feed well whilst we were in recovery. Henry had his blood sugars checked at a few hours old (due to my medication) and they were significantly low - this was quite a worry for me especially as his Dad is a Type 1 diabetic on top of the risk of my medication. Fortunately, I had quite a lot of expressed colostrum from harvesting it antenatally and this really helped to raise his sugars as well as glucogel.
After a full night of feeding, I felt exhausted and my nipples were so sore, so I decided to give Henry a bottle of formula which he guzzled it all making me feel terrible as I felt I hadn’t given him enough. I came to accept that if this was the difference between breastfeeding and not at all then that was fine.
We were discharged the following day and did a mixture of combination feeding but with a hope that it would be more breastmilk.
Day 3 came and our wonderful midwife came to see us in our hour of need as a home visit. Henry wouldn’t come near me, screamed every time we tried to feed and I was just an absolutely emotional wreck. Our midwife explained that this is completely normal especially as I had lost 1.5 litres of blood at delivery so my body will take a bit longer to produce ‘proper milk’ rather than just colostrum. This then all made sense, Henry was just frustrated that he couldn’t get the amount he wanted.
Day 5 and I remember thinking ‘be careful what you wish for’ when my milk came in and then I had a huge oversupply.…I
was readmitted back into hospital on Day 7 for postnatal sepsis and this felt like a huge step back in our feeding journey as I was too unwell to look after Henry.
Whilst he we was with me in the daytime, my husband took him home at night to ensure I could maximise getting myself better. I was still pumping and by this point felt like I could feed the whole ward with the amount of milk - by my goodness did my boobs hurt!
Skip to about 4 weeks old and with a heck of a lot of grit and sheer determination we were slowly weaning the bottle down and upping the exclusive breastfeeding. By 6 weeks old, Henry wouldn’t take a bottle of any kind of milk so it was just me and him!
And here we are, Henry turns 17 months next week and our breastfeeding journey is as strong as ever❤️ Our bond is so special because of it, we often joke about all the different places ‘I just get my boobs out’ and Henry is showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. I’m frequently asked when am I going to give it up and my answer is simply ‘we both love it, it does us no harm, so whenever it’s natural ending will be the time.’
So keep going Mummas - you know your baby best so just follow your instincts😘”
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