So as you may or may not recall we took a breastfeeding class some time ago. One of the major points of the lactation consultant who taught the class was breastfeed your baby early and often often often. We kept this in mind and within a half hour of his birth Kiernan was at the breast.
Success!
Maybe we had a problem at this point.
I let him "feed" (i say "feed" because there is not that much for a newborn to feed on at first it is more an issue of going through the motions to stimulate milk production and for general baby practice) for quite a while and it hurt. Everybody says it hurts at first...i will toughen up.
During the hospital stay there were a number of times when the nurses and also the pediatricians and i myself gave the quality of Kiernan's latch some thought. He passed with flying colors. The other thing that we kept track of at this stage was number of feedings and/or attempted feedings. The emphasis on often often often.
Maybe we had a problem at this point.
When asked how it was going i answered quite truthfully that it hurt. I should have been asked or maybe have answered on a scale of 1-10 with 10 the worst pain of my life and 0 representing no pain whatsoever i was at about a 7. The problem with the it hurts everyone at first is that hurts is actually a fairly subjective term.
Before we left the hospital the pediatrician came by to check Kiernan's weight. Unfortunately my milk hadn't come in yet. The Dr. suggested that we start giving the baby formula until he could actually get breast milk. We gave Kiernan his first bottle when we got home. I was really surprisingly upset by this. I knew that I had planned to breastfeed but i didn't know how much I wanted to breastfeed. In a moment of not quite irony my milk came in about a half an hour after he had the formula.
Once we got home i spent a great deal of time gritting my teeth and waiting to toughen up. I was told by my sister and by a good friend to contact a lactation consultant if i had any problems. I waited because the general wisdom claims a week or two is normal for the pain of toughening up.
Just a bit before we hit two weeks my nipples started bleeding. Good grief that hurts (also after a bit of blood Kiernan started throwing up).
The baby eats somewhere between 8-12 times a day. I started feeding on only one side at a feeding to give a longer rest period for the recovery and scabbing over on the other side. I called a lactation consultant. David ran out and got me a pump(bless him).
Maybe we had a problem at this point.
When the LC came over to our place Kiernan's latch was once again validated as pretty good. I must point out here that he was thriving and gaining weight and seemed contented after feedings. Feedings were taking about 20-30 minutes. I spent most of the time trying to get advice on pain relief and speedy healing...
I got some good information on healing and pain relief and I started pumping and feeding Kiernan breast milk in bottled form. First off this was a particularly difficult time and I was a crying wreck. Most of the crying was from straight pain not from upset or sleep deprivation. At this time I also cried from this sense of loss over the breastfeeding.
We for sure had a problem here in the form of a ravenous baby. That boy given his druthers will polish off a 4 oz bottle in 2 minutes. This comes from the comparative ease of a bottle and from his inexperience with a constant flow of milk. . . and maybe a little bit he is showing his Irish lol. The upshot here is a sick to his stomach baby so we had to slow him down. A slow hungry Kiernan is an angry Kiernan. Also pumping and cleaning and pumping and cleaning and feeding and cleaning and pumping is a real drag. Also also despite the extra sleep the bottles afforded me, as David could feed him, i missed the breastfeeding and to my slight vindication and more than mild sorrow Kiernan missed it too.
All this time i was running an experiment on my breasts. The LC (lactation consultant) ended up recommending two different treatments. One was the modern high tech method using a product called Soothies and the other was a sort of tree hugger method with cabbage extract called Cabo.
I kept good notes on this and used Soothies on the right breast and Cabo on the left side. Surprisingly the Cabo won but only by a slight margin.
By the time Kiernan had his next Dr.'s visit I could nurse again on the right side but even though the scabbing and bleeding had been beaten into submission from a combination of pumping and healing treatments I was still having a great deal of discomfort, a sort of throbbing burning pain during and not during too.
The visit went well Kiernan gained weight and got taller and had good bright yellow poo. The Dr. asked how the nursing was going and i told her that it hurt but also that i had been given the OK on his latch by the LC. She (Dr. Takai praise her) asked if she could see him nurse. I stripped in front of another perfect stranger and began to feed my son. (I am getting good at being mostly exposed in front of random people. This is a little weird because i am prudishly modest most of the time.) I feed him on the right side because of the pain thing and the Dr. nodded and asked to see the other side. So I switched him over and gave my grimace and yelp and got some really good news. He's not swallowing points out Dr. Takai. His latch is good looking and he is gnawing/sucking but not drinking. Then she takes the baby and opens his mouth and tells us that he has Tongue Tie. There is the bleeding explanation. Unfortunately he also had a yeast infection that we had been inappropriately treating as diaper rash. He passed the yeast infection to my nipples. There is the burning pain explanation.
Last week I started putting Lotrimine AF (for jock itch no less) on my nipples to kill the yeast .
I think this has worked. I started breastfeeding again straight away. Let me tell you that rinsing off your nipples every few hours with cold cold water and a washcloth when they hurt so much you cant even wear a shirt or sleep with a sheet is not the barrel of monkeys its cracked up to be.
Yesterday Kiernan had his frenotomy. Poor boy go to sleep innocently and wake up to have some stranger slice up your tongue, with no anesthetic! The good news is that he was able to nurse immediately and everything felt softer to me. He has been extra drooly and fussy but both of these things are diminishing as the day wears on.
Right now I am not bleeding when feeding him and am almost entirely healed and the burning pain is pretty minimal. I will stay off sugar and eat lots of yogurt and we will be very careful about latch as he gets used to his new tongue. Wish me luck.
1 comment:
oh my gosh...
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