21 June 2011

Sadie's Breastfeeding Story


The lovely Sadie has kindly sent in her breastfeeding story to share with you all. A very harrowing story I'm sure you'll agree. Read on for her tale...

I had my baby boy January this year and was discharged from hospital the day after, more because they were running out of beds than because I felt well enough.

I really struggled to breastfeed and got little support from the hospital, I had diamorphine through labour and my baby was very drowsy from this and didn't latch on, I expressed and used a syringe to feed him but he went from 9lbs 2oz to 8lbs 5oz. I was determined to breastfeed so I really wanted to persevere and eventually got him to latch on. I was very tired as my labour had been 84 hours and I was having severe after pains. I told the midwives about the pains who told me to got to the doctor and the doctor told me to tell the midwives.


My boy was 7 days old and breastfeeding was really hard when I suddenly got a fever and the shakes I was admitted to A&E but was too weak to even hold my baby let alone feed him. It turned out I had a uterine infection which had spread to my kidneys. They put me on a saline drip, antibiotics and parecetomol by drip but my body had gone into shock and my veins had contracted making it difficult to get needles in and the canulars kept coming out. Through this I expressed milk using an electric pump in the hospital and sent the milk back to my son who was at home with my husband and mum.

The infections were treated and I was sent home after 5 days where I began to try to breastfeed again, I went to the doctor who said I still had a water infection which was making it hard to produce the amount of milk my boy was needing but he was putting weight on through expressing and trying to breastfeed. The midwives advised to express more to get my milk supply up which I did. But my temperature and pains came back and after being out of hospital for 10 days I was admitted again but this time I was allowed my son with me where he breastfed constantly.


It was suggested I would need surgery to remove the left over placenta that kept getting infected so I was put on nil by mouth but still continuing to try to breastfeed without food or water until 1 pm when I was due to go into surgery and they changed their mind thinking it would be risky as my womb was inflamed from the infection. I was given tablets to make my womb contract to try to dispell the placenta and sent home again.
Again I wasn't feeling well and the doctor sent me for an ultrasound as the hospital hadn't followed up on this and this showed placenta and membrane was still left in and I was booked in for surgery. Through all of this I continued to express and breastfeed my son.

After the surgery I felt better very quickly but my son was now 6 weeks and I had missed out on that important first weeks from being so ill. The community midwives and health visitors were worried about post natal depression but breastfeeding my baby secured the bond and we were fine.


After that time breastfeeding became much easier and I am still breastfeeding my son at 5 and a half months although we are starting to wean as he is big. I have no intention of stopping breastfeeding soon as I love it and although it was hard through all the problems I had was probably the best thing as I have a strong bond with my baby and stopped me getting post natal depression - the fist time I went into hopital and was just expressing without having him with me I didn't want him so I really believe that breastfeeding helped this feeling and stopped me getting worse.

See what Sadie gets up to on twitter.

2 comments on "Sadie's Breastfeeding Story"

Cate S on 23 June 2011 at 12:23 said...

Wow, Sadie, you are amazing! Well done, you.

The Breastest News on 23 June 2011 at 23:06 said...

She is such an amazing woman for continuing on :)

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