Breast Feeding and Increasing Lactation

Before conception I knew I wanted to breastfeed. And my goal was at the very least to be able to nurse my daughter until she was one year old. In preparation I was consumed with online shopping searching for all of the nursing and breastfeeding gear and accessories. With this shopping I bought an expensive electronic pump, travel accessories for the pump, breastfeeding covers, nipple ointment to prevent cracking to sum it up I was prepared!

After the delivery of my daughter, I refused to allow them to feed her formula and was determined for her to have colustrum. So the difficulty began, according to proper technique she was not latched on properly but we did manage to squeeze out small amounts of colostrum for her. Colostrum, the first liquid that is secreted from the breast after a baby is born, has a large number of important nutrients and benefits for a newborn.

Due to her not latching on properly, I seeked help from the lactation nurse/specialist on duty. I honestly believe this was the worst experience ever, they were very forceful and rough positioning my daughter’s head on to breast. It was so terrible I gave up on the lactation nurse and decided to try to figure it out on my own. After seeking their assistance on two occasions I refused their assistance. Luckily I packed my pump for the hospital. My daughter had not eaten very much and her lips began to become chapped and purple tinted, the nurse told me this was due to dehydration. So I decided to pump out the colostrum and bottle feed her as the nurses encouraged us to supplement with formula. All the while, we were trying to get her to latch on in the interim. Unfortunately my daughter never latched on before leaving the hospital. After leaving the hospital my milk supply was very plentiful each pumping will produce at least 8oz.

When my daughter was almost two weeks old I got mastitis while waiting at the pediatrician office with my daughter. Mastitis is an infection of the tissue of the breast that occurs most frequently during the time of breastfeeding. This infection causes pain, swelling, redness, and increased temperature of the breast. It can occur when bacteria, often from the baby’s mouth, enter a milk duct through a crack in the nipple. This causes an infection and painful inflammation of the breast. The mastitis lead to pain, decreased milk, fever and me wearing cabbage in my bra along with the antibiotics. Greatly we were able to fix the mastitis right away. After a few weeks my milk supply did pick back up a little. The mastitis is the point were I stopped trying to get my daughter to latch on, which is now my biggest regret. I also wish I would have known to try to use a breast shield to assist with her latching on properly.

At three months, my milk supply began to decrease all the way to about a total of 2 oz from both breast at each pumping. I began to take fenugreek, mother milk and lactation tea’s and increased my pumping with no increase in my milk supply. I also stopped going to the gym hoping that increase in testosterone was not the cause of my decrease in milk. To no avail my milk supply did not increase. Many women that I speak with that had a bout with mastitis within the first one to two months have had difficulty regaining and maintaining their milk.

However, I continued to pump, determined, even though I was only producing one bottle a day. Providing any amount of breast milk I could a day was the goal. My plan to provide breastmilk has not changed therefore the plan was to continue to pump as long as I was able to produce.  Most of the day she was feed enfamil formula and whatever amount of milk produced.

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