Express Youself

Carrie Bostock - 24 Mar 16

“Rub his cheek. It will stimulate his suck reflex.”
“Oh don’t rub his cheek, he will think it is a nipple and get confused.”

And thus began my second foray into the battle I have with breastfeeding.

My first son was born by emergency c-section after nearly 24 hours of labour, I was essentially totally off my head with tiredness and drugs afterwards. Although I said I wanted to breastfeed, I was left to my own devices to try and do this as a first time mum and who had just had major surgery. One midwife did ask me how I was getting on and I said I was finding it difficult. She watched me struggling with my writhing newborn, tried grabbing my boob and ramming it into his mouth and then went of to get a breast pump.

For the next five and half months I was a slave to the breast pump. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud that I did it all for my son, but it was relentless. A particular low point was when I dropped 10oz of precious expressed milk and my husband joked “Don’t cry over spilt milk.” I did, lots! Oh and also throwing out nearly two months worth of frozen milk as it split when I defrosted it. That wasn’t great either.

Before we even started trying for our second, I declared I was not going to express this time. How could I with a newborn and a 22 month old?

I had an elective c-section and insisted on skin to skin and having baby with me at all times. I tried feeding as soon as I physically could. Then the advice started. My son would not latch. There is nothing like being told at three in the morning whilst your baby is screaming that you have very flat nipples and then having them checked by a second midwife to confirm that they are indeed freaky. After three days the dreaded words of “more than 10%” and “jaundice” were being bandied about along with the dreaded “I will go and get the breast pump.” I sat and cried. My hormones were telling me that I should do this. Breast is best. My baby will not die of SIDS. I will not get breast cancer. Thankfully, I small logical part of brain still existed and I said no.

I left hospital saying that I would persevere with breast feeding, which I did, and then my son was weighed and had lost more than the 10%. The logical part of me said, right formula and I carefully explained to the midwife why I was doing this but all my logical arguments were probably over shadowed by my interjections that I was a failure whilst sobbing so much my leggings were soggy. I knew there was a way that I could give him breast milk and my breast pump sat in the spare room practically calling out to me in the night, but I knew I couldn’t do it again.

My son is now four weeks and is thriving on formula (we do use one that uses palm oil not from flattened rainforest as by doing this it makes me feel better. I might not be able to give you breastmilk but I will protect the planet for you one box of formula at a time!). I can now see it has been the best decision for our family.

Oh, and my precious first born who I spent hours expressing for, he has an egg allergy and eczema. I think Alanis Morrisette wrote a song which sums that all up nicely.

Carrie Bostock

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